Star Wars Forever
by PinkElephant5
Summary: A bizarre crime scene points Jo and Henry to a killer obsessed with Star Wars—not that Henry has ever seen Star Wars.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello, gentle readers! This fic began life as a Tumblr prompt, but it grew into an actual casefic. If you're worried about The Force Awakens spoilers, rest easy! Only original trilogy references here. Many thanks to truthisademurelady for both the prompt (which never mentioned Star Wars) and for being my beta (which requires much Star Wars expertise).**

 **May the Force (of Henry's charm and Jo's kickassery) be with you!**

* * *

A log crackled warmly in the fireplace as Henry settled back into his favorite chair. Strains of Wagner drifted through the apartment as side B continued to tell the epic story where side A had left off. Henry picked up the tumbler from the end table beside him, held it under his nose, and swirled the amber liquid gently. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled with a satisfied sigh. This was shaping up to be a perfect evening at home.

"Hold it right there!"

Henry froze with the the glass against his lips. He opened his eyes to find his son standing before him, glaring accusingly.

"Is that the '81?"

"Hello, Abraham; you're home early. How was the auction?"

"Don't change the subject, Henry!" Both of Abe's hands were planted on his hips. "That's the last glass of the Macallan '81, isn't it?"

"And an excellent year it was, too—for them, anyway." He looked from glass to man with a mild expression of surprise. "I'm sorry, had you intended to drink this tonight?"

"Nice try." Abe's narrowed eyes showed that he wasn't buying the innocent act, but he let it go. "Well, never mind. At least there's still lasagna in the fridge. I'm starving." Abe started to turn toward the kitchen, but the guilty twitch between Henry's eyebrows halted him. "Come on—seriously? The lasagna, too?"

His father looked honestly contrite this time. "I am sorry, Abe. I thought you were meeting the Frenchman for dinner after the auction."

"She has the flu, so I came straight home for leftovers and fine scotch."

"And instead, you find yourself victim to the sins of the father." Henry smiled apologetically. He didn't surrender the glass, though.

Abe took in the tableau his father presented, cocking one ear toward the record player. "Sounds like I interrupted an epic night in. Haven't heard you play Wagner in a while."

"I was in the mood for complex and dramatic—blame the scotch, perhaps. We can open the '94," Henry suggested as a peace offering. "It's good in a pinch."

"Yeah, sure, why not," Abe said dryly. "It'll go perfectly with the peanut butter on white bread I'm about to make for dinner."

Henry was about to chide his son for being more melodramatic than _Tristan und Isolde_ when the phone rang.

"Please, don't get up. Allow me," Abe crossed the room to answer the call. "Hello?" After a moment he held the receiver out in Henry's direction. "It's Jo. Other people's tragedies continue to pile up around you."

* * *

"Watch your step, Henry." Jo tracked her partner's progress as he stepped onto the ice rink and made his way cautiously toward their crime scene.

"Welcome to the freakshow," Hanson added.

Henry came to a sliding stop between the two detectives and got his first good look at the situation. His eyes practically twinkled at the sight.

"You were right, Jo." He turned to her with the hint of a smile. "This was well worth surrendering a glass of fine scotch."

"I thought you'd like this one. Now you and Abe both win." She returned his half-smile, enjoying her moment of victory before returning to business. "The victim and his…companion…were discovered an hour ago when the rink attendants showed up to resurface the ice. The rink was officially closed for maintenance today, but it's hard to keep people out if they're determined." She gestured to the chest-high boards that formed a flat-sided oval wall, the only thing separating the outdoor rink from the snow-covered ball fields, playgrounds, and groves of trees in the park beyond.

"This is a new level of blood and violence, even for hockey." Hanson glanced around them. "There's more red than white in here. And what's the deal with the llama?"

Henry walked slowly around the edge of the bizarre scene, taking in each unlikely detail. The vivid red gore stood out in stark contrast to the white sheet of ice below it, but despite Hanson's description, the blood and remains were mostly contained within one area: the blue ring of the face-off circle at center ice.

"Alpaca."

"Bless you," Hanson responded.

"No," Henry clarified, "alpaca. It's a species of camelid first bred in the Andes Mountains of South America. Related to llamas, but smaller and raised for their hair. I had a very fine alpaca scarf once…" He got a fond, slightly distant look in his eyes, and Jo and Hanson exchanged a glance. Hanson's half of the exchange included a long-suffering eye roll.

Jo turned back to Henry. "Fine neckwear aside, how did a mountain-dwelling animal end up on an ice rink in New York, not to mention sliced wide open and stuffed with human body parts like a…" She struggled to land on the right description.

"Turducken?" Hanson offered.

She shuddered at the thought. "Remind me to never eat Thanksgiving dinner with the Hansons."

Henry had completed his circle around the victim―victims, really. "Local ordinance does not permit alpacas to be raised within city limits, but this time of the year they're common enough in parks."

"Due to…migration?" Jo offered.

Henry pointed to a banner strung between two poles halfway across the park; it featured cheerful red and green wording and cartoonish pictures of farm animals wearing Santa hats.

"Christmas petting zoos."

"Hanson, you wanna―"

"―contact the zoo people and see if they're missing an alpaca?" Hanson finished for her. "On it." He gave Jo and Henry a parting nod and shoe-skated to the edge of the rink, flipping around halfway across and finishing the distance backwards. "Did I mention I played peewee hockey? Still got it." With a flourish, he hopped through the opening in the boards before picking his way more cautiously down the plowed but icy sidewalk toward the petting zoo sign to look for contact information.

Jo turned back to the grisly sight at center ice. The echo of a familiar image was tickling the edge of her brain. She frowned in thought and stepped back from the bodies for a wider perspective. After a handful of seconds, she gasped. "Holy crap. It's Luke Skywalker."

"You knew the victim?" Henry looked up with interest from the task of donning elbow-length exam gloves. "How did you recognize him by his left foot?" Other jumbled chunks of flesh were also protruding from the creature's belly, but only the foot was recognizable as human to anyone other than Henry.

She shook her head. "No, I'm talking about the staging. Big animal sliced open, person stuffed inside, icy backdrop…it's Luke Skywalker." Henry was still looking back at her blankly. "Star Wars?" she prompted. " _Empire Strikes Back_? Ring any bells?"

"Ah yes, of course." Henry nodded.

Jo waited. She knew her partner.

He didn't disappoint her. "Would that be Star Wars the Reagan-era defense program, or Star Wars the motion picture space opera?"

"Space opera." She crossed her arms, looking skeptical. "Come on, Henry. Even you must have seen Star Wars."

"Abe saw it often enough for the both of us." He cocked his head in interest. "How did you come to be so well-versed?"

"Long story."

She didn't seem inclined to go into it now, so Henry returned his attention to examining the body. He carefully extracted the foot with attached shin and turned it over in his hands. "I don't know if the victim was named Luke, but he was male, probably late 30's." He set the foot down, reached in again, and pulled out a red lump of flesh. "He had a healthy liver."

"Luke or the alpaca?" Jo considered the corpses. "That's not a very big body cavity to hold an entire adult male, chopped up or not."

"Very observant, Detective," Henry complimented. "Even if the animal had been entirely gutted, only about half of the victim could be present here, based on volume."

"So I still have half a body to find."

"I'm afraid so." Henry adjusted his gloves and plunged one arm back into the alpaca. He reminded Jo of a large animal veterinarian assisting with a birth, only instead of newborn calves, he was pulling out human feet and livers. It was creepy.

"I'll need both the human and animal remains transported to my lab as soon as I separate them. Under the circumstances, an I.D. and cause of death will be easier to determine from there."

Jo flagged down a member of the CSU staff and relayed the request, which the woman accepted with a nod of resignation. It was going to be a late, messy night for everyone.

"Detective, would you hand me a small evidence bag?" Henry reached one bloody, gloved hand toward her, fingers clasped around something. Jo pulled a bag from her coat pocket and leaned in to hold it open while Henry dropped in what looked like either a partial tooth or some undigested feed corn. This close to the body, her senses got a much stronger dose of the scene than she'd gotten before.

Her nose wrinkled. "They really do smell worse on the inside."

"Pardon?" Henry was once more up to his elbows in matted hair and gore and only half listening.

"Never mind."


	2. Chapter 2

Henry and Lucas stood over opposite sides of an exam table in the morgue. They had arranged the parts of the victim recovered so far in an approximation of where they belonged anatomically. The result looked like a human puzzle missing half its pieces.

Of course, that was precisely what it was. As predicted, about half the body was missing, including the hands and face.

"So much for an easy I.D.," Jo remarked when she arrived at Henry's side. "Any clues as to cause of death? I'm assuming this wasn't 'death by rabid alpaca attack.' "

"Not unless this alpaca had thumbs." Henry nodded toward the creature on the large exam table behind her, and she turned to look.

"He doesn't, by the way," Lucas put in. "I checked."

"Thanks, Lucas. Very thorough." Jo's compliment was undercut by both her sarcastic tone and the four cloven, thumbless hooves jutting out over the edge of the table.

Henry picked up the human foot before him, still attached to a partial shin, and ran a finger over the more or less flat surface at the end of the fragment. "No indication yet of what killed our John Doe, but striations on the bone indicate a small-toothed saw was used to dismember the body."

"Like a hacksaw?" Jo asked.

"Yes, most likely. The color of the affected bone surface indicates that he was dead first, rather than dismemberment being the cause of death. Unfortunately, without his head or the majority of his torso, it will be very difficult to determine how he did die."

"It's also making an I.D. trickier," Jo added.

Hanson approached from the elevator and joined their circle. He winced at the condition of the body.

"Yikes, what a mess." He tapped his pen on his notebook. "Not many leads on what happened to the fuzzball, either." He flicked a nod at the alpaca. "The owners put all the animals in their trailers when the petting zoo closed for the evening at five. They were gone for less than ten minutes to find a park employee to open the back gate, and when they got back, one of the trailers had been jimmied open, and this fellow was missing."

"Sounds like the thief planned for this," Jo said. "That's not much time to pick a lock and find somewhere to hide an alpaca on impulse."

"The farmers searched the park," Hanson continued, "including the area near the ice rink, but they didn't find any sign of the critter or see anything unusual. They filed a police report by phone, but the rest of the animals needed to get back to the farm, so they didn't stick around."

"Who did they think was responsible?" Jo asked.

Hanson shrugged. "Rival petting zoo, sweater mafia—who knows. The owner was too distraught about Al to be very helpful. He mostly just glared at me with this wounded look because the NYPD didn't send officers immediately. What was he expecting for a glorified sheep, search helicopters?"

"Wait a minute," Lucas interjected, and pointed to their secondary victim. "His name was Al? Al the Alpaca?"

"The owner was devoted; I never said he was creative." Hanson returned to his notes. "According to the main office, the only vehicles in the park that evening belonged to park employees or the zoo people."

"It would have been very difficult to transport even half of the victim's body on foot from outside the gates without raising suspicion," Henry remarked. "Lividity suggests he was killed between two and three p.m., no more than three hours before the alpaca went missing. This degree of dismemberment would have taken most of that time to accomplish."

"So we're looking for a murder site within the park," Jo concluded, and her partner nodded his agreement.

A lab tech approached Lucas to deliver a report. Lucas's eyebrows rose as he read the single sheet. He handed it off to Henry, whose eyebrows arched up as well.

"Impressive. Well done, Lucas." His assistant beamed at the compliment.

"What is it?" Jo prompted.

"For some reason, Lucas suggested we run a rather unusual test for a certain type of spore on the body. It came back positive."

Hanson held out one palm impatiently. "Meaning…?"

Henry deferred to Lucas. "Our victim was in a cave just before he died." Jo and Hanson looked mildly confused, yet impressed. "It was just a hunch," he went on with exaggerated modesty. "A shot in the dark based on my extensive knowledge of all things Star Wars." When Jo and Hanson's confusion didn't fade, he prompted, "Episode V? Luke's confrontation with his own Dark Side in the cave?"

"Oh right, that trippy scene where Vader shows up but not really," Hanson said.

"This park isn't quite the swamps of Dagobah, but maybe a general outdoorsy vibe is all you need if you're a deranged serial killer."

"That is a deep cut. Good catch, Lucas," Jo added.

"Am I to understand," Henry began, looking at his assistant with something between confusion and distaste, "that you made this unlikely intuitive leap based on…a science fiction film? With puppets?"

"To be fair, Doc," Hanson said, "it's not just _a_ sci-fi movie. It's one of _the_ sci-fi movies. My boys went through a phase where they watched original Star Wars every day for two months, and by the end I still didn't want to gouge my own eyes out. I can't say the same about their _Frozen_ phase." He shuddered at the thought. "You really haven't seen any Star Wars?"

"Somehow I have led a full and productive life without it."

"You think so now because you haven't seen it." Lucas shook his head slowly, almost sadly, clearly pained by his boss's self-imposed deprivation.

"I'll fill you in later, Henry." Jo steered them back on course. "For now, where is the nearest cave to the park?"

"I'll contact the U.S. Geological Survey," Hanson offered.

"No need." Henry looked pleased to be back on familiar footing again. "I know just the place."

* * *

The mouth of the cave was mostly obscured by low brush, tree branches, and the natural contours of the shallow ravine it occupied. Even if it hadn't been after ten o'clock at night, this would not have been an easy place to find. Entrance had been further discouraged by a hodgepodge of particle board, two-by-fours, and rebar pounded into the rock to form a door blocking the opening. At least, it used to block the entrance; currently the panel had been pulled away and was scattered on the ravine floor in splintered chunks.

"We try to keep people out," the park ranger accompanying Henry and Jo explained, "but it's a losing battle. Homeless folks have been using this place for decades."

"Longer than that," Henry commented under his breath. Their three flashlight beams scanned the surrounding brush and revealed scattered evidence of those passing residents: a dirty white sock here, a crushed beer can there.

"In the park office we call them our 'renters.' They don't usually cause much serious trouble," the ranger went on. "The police only file the occasional charge for minor drug possession or vagrancy. The renters chase away underage drinkers on their turf, so they're usually the lesser of two evils."

"Has anyone been 'renting' lately?" Jo asked.

He shook his head. "We cleared out a guy and finished rebuilding the door just last week." He picked up the bent remains of a metal "No Trespassing" sign and sighed. "It usually takes a lot longer than this for someone to break back in."

Without further comment, the ranger gestured them through the jagged edge of the doorway. The opening remained narrow for several feet, keeping the broader space beyond completely dark to their eyes. Jo went first, followed by Henry.

The cave was not large; even at its highest point, they needed to stoop slightly to avoid hitting their heads on the damp ceiling, and it was no more than six feet by seven feet side to side. Their flashlights landed on the cave floor and froze there. After a moment to interpret the partly-illuminated scene before them, they knew they had found the right place.

"Oh God. I'm going to be sick." The ranger had entered behind them, but he quickly exited to make good on his word in the bushes outside.

Jo scanned her new crime scene. "No homeless guy drunk on cheap beer did this."

"No," Henry agreed. "This was carefully planned and executed." He cast his flashlight methodically over the space, mentally cataloging what he saw: organs, viscera, and partial limbs. He handed his flashlight to Jo while he snapped latex gloves into place.

"That said, this site doesn't look very careful." Jo gestured to the seemingly haphazard blood spatters and scattered remains. She suspected that one twisted pile was alpaca guts.

"The staging on the ice was his statement to the world. I believe we are seeing behind the scenes, so to speak." Henry took back his flashlight and picked his way across the cave floor, trying not to disturb the evidence. It wasn't easy; almost every square foot was covered with remains or darkened with blood. When he reached his goal, the largely-intact torso at the center of the cave, he bent down to shine his flashlight over the skin from several angles.

"Well, at least we can get an easy I.D. now." Jo pointed out a hand in one dark corner. The hand was also leaning against something vaguely spherical and covered in enough blood-matted brown hair to suggest a partially-concealed skull.

"We also have cause of death." Henry pointed to something on the victim's chest that Jo couldn't see through the poor light and thick blood, but her partner looked satisfied with his discovery. "This was murder."

"Shocker." Jo pulled out her cell phone and dialed. "Hey, we found the rest of him. Send CSU, would you? And Hanson? They're gonna need the body suits again."

* * *

The jigsaw puzzle that was their victim was finally coming together.

"Reunited and it feels so good—well, for me, anyway. Sorry, dude." Lucas laid the final piece, the left patella, in place with what he considered a respectful flourish. Henry didn't notice the small ceremony; he was positioning the magnifier over the victim's ribcage to examine the slit between two ribs he had first spotted in the cave.

"The shape of the entrance and exit wounds are consistent with a double-edged blade, slightly curved and three centimeters wide with little to no variation in width."

"Some kind of sword?" Lucas offered.

"Not just some kind," Henry answered, his eyes still set in the magnifier's eyepieces. "A sword dictated by the ancient bushido code in Japan."

"A samurai sword?" Lucas's eyebrows shot up. "That is so badass. But then again," he added, "we should have expected that, right? I mean, since functional lightsabers don't exist, and Jedi are basically samurai in space."

That finally got Henry's attention, and he looked up to frown at Lucas. "Star Wars again? This is a murder investigation, Lucas, not a fan club." He returned to fine-tuning the focus on one particular area surrounding the fatal wound. With a scalpel, Henry carefully lifted a small sample from the area, loaded it onto a slide, and placed it under a waiting microscope. Meanwhile, Lucas was protesting Henry's dismissal of George Lucas's masterwork.

"Doc, with how this case is shaping up so far, you seriously need to rethink seeing—what?" He cut himself off when Henry jerked his head up from the viewfinder with an expression that had become familiar to his assistant. "What did you find?"

"Something Jo needs to know immediately." Without further explanation, Henry pulled off his blood-spattered apron and gloves, strode to the elevator, and pushed the button impatiently until the car arrived and whisked him away.

Lucas blinked into the vacuum of quiet and stillness that Henry had left behind. After a few moments, his curiosity kicked in, and he sidled over to the microscope and leaned in to have a look.

"Oh. Oh!" First his eyebrows furrowed in concentration over the eyepieces, then they spiked up in realization.

Henry had a natural talent for dramatic flair, which Lucas totally respected—envied, even. However, given the evidence under this microscope, Henry's reaction had actually been restrained. _So cool,_ Lucas thought. Someday, he would learn to exit like that.

Right. Maybe if he had, like, a hundred years to practice.

* * *

"Facial recognition came through." Hanson held up a file folder in victory before slapping it down on Jo's desk and opening it. "Our victim's name was Mike Lovitz."

Jo frowned slightly. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"He got his fifteen minutes of fame earlier this year, though not for the best reasons. He was an executive at Empire Pharmaceuticals."

"Oh, now I remember." Jo tapped the photo on the first page of the file. "He took an inexpensive drug used to fight malaria in developing countries and quadrupled the price. Instant hero to Empire's shareholders."

"And overnight villain to the rest of the world," Hanson finished.

"There's probably no shortage of people who wished he was dead," Jo said. "We just need to narrow the list somehow."

"I may be able to help with that." Henry strode towards them from the elevator, buzzing with energy.

"What did you find?" Hanson asked. "Did the killer leave DNA?"

"Yes, but not his own."

"Whose was it, then?" Jo asked.

"The first question is not who, but how. Our victim was killed with a katana—a samurai sword—thrust through his heart." Henry extended one hand out toward Hanson's rib cage and began to pantomime the motion, but Hanson took a step back with two raised palms.

"Nope, sorry, Doc. If you wanted a crash test dummy, you should have dragged Lucas up here."

"The killer struck deep," Henry continued, too excited to be put off by Hanson's rejection. "He ran the victim through so forcefully that the tsuba, or guard, of the sword was pressed against the victim's skin. The tsuba left a slight impression, like a seal in wax. In the impression, I found traces of human liver tissue." He paused then, allowing the detectives to process what he obviously considered a vital revelation.

"That body was a mess," Hanson countered. "There must have been all kinds of tissue in places where it didn't belong."

"Not liver, though." To Hanson's surprise, it was Jo who spoke. "Mike Lovitz's liver was intact." She was picturing the undamaged organ Henry had held up at the ice rink. The pieces were falling into place, and suddenly she understood why Henry was so worked up. "We have a second victim."

He nodded in confirmation. "More accurately, a first victim, killed with the same sword no more than two days ago, judging by the viability of the cells I found."

"Are you telling me we have a Star Wars serial killer on our hands?" Hanson groaned. "I hate the weird ones."

* * *

 _A/N: I totally made up the park and the cave. My apologies to any NYC park system aficionados out there. ;)_


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey there, readers! Well, that was a much longer turnaround than I expected. My apologies for the delay. Many thanks to my beta, idelthoughts, who helped me push through some serious blockage.**

* * *

"Welcome to Empire Pharmaceuticals. How may I help you?" The receptionist was a young woman with maple brown skin that practically glowed with health. Jo suspected that near-retirees with wrinkles and sciatica never held this job. She lifted her badge for the woman to see.

"I'm Detective Martinez, and this is my partner, Dr. Morgan. We have a few questions about Mike Lovitz."

"Mr. Lovitz's assistant handles all of his scheduling." The woman efficiently tapped a few buttons and said a few words into her headset before giving Jo and Henry a dismissive smile. "Keith will be right down." A ringing phone captured her attention, and she turned away.

Jo shot a questioning look to her partner. They paced away from the desk to stand near a set of modern waiting room furniture that could only look that simple if it were very expensive.

"Apparently Mr. Lovitz's absence has not been widely noted," Henry observed.

"Either that, or they have something to hide."

"They certainly have an image to uphold." Henry took in their surroundings. "Note the neutral colors and well-cultivated plants, meant to assure visitors that Empire and its products are natural and life-giving."

"Didn't do our victim any good," Jo commented dryly.

A door on the interior side of the reception room opened, and a young man of medium height appeared and approached them. He looked no older than twenty-five, with carefully styled blonde hair and skin that didn't have acne, but somehow seemed like it should.

"Detective Martinez? I'm Keith, Mr. Lovitz's assistant." He shook her hand, then Henry's. "Nice to meet you." His voice and eye contact were steady, but his palms were slightly sweaty. "I'm afraid that if you're here about the investigation, no Empire employees are at liberty to discuss it. The D.A. will receive the subpoenaed documents well before—"

"Keith," Jo interrupted, "we're not with the D.A. I'm homicide, and Dr. Morgan is a medical examiner."

Keith looked nonplussed. "You're not here about the lawsuit?"

"No," Henry confirmed, "although it does sound fascinating. It also explains why you're wearing that garish 'power tie' in an attempt to exhibit more dominance than your bearing naturally supports. Trying to hold your own against the prosecutor's team?"

"What is he talking about?" Keith directed the question to Jo. He managed to keep his voice casual, but one hand drifted up defensively to cover his red silk tie. She fought hard to keep her eyes from rolling.

"We're here because Mike Lovitz was murdered last night. When was the last time you saw your boss?" Jo watched the assistant closely for his reaction to this news—if indeed it was news to him.

"Wait. What? Mike is dead?" Keith lost his carefully-applied company face and simply looked stunned. "God. It finally caught up with him."

"What caught up with him?" Henry pressed.

Keith shrugged. "Karma." He seemed vaguely saddened, but not upset or even very surprised. "I mean, I assume you watch the news." He glanced across the otherwise empty room at the receptionist, who was now watching them with interest but was too far away to hear their hushed conversation.

"You mean the malaria drug?" Jo asked.

Keith nodded. "You wouldn't believe the shitstorm that made landfall when the Times broke that story about how much Mike increased our profit margin on Malatone."

"Actually, I can well believe it," Henry said. "Malaria kills a million people every year. Empire Pharmaceuticals is making billions in blood money."

Keith threw up his hands in defense. "Look, I'm only a lackey around here—and I'm the one who had to open all that hate mail." He shuddered at the memory.

"Can you think of anyone in particular who wanted Mr. Lovitz dead?" Jo asked, coaxing the man back from his flashback. "Any letters or personal confrontations that stand out?"

Keith shook his head slowly. "Not that I can think of. It was all equally angry."

"When did you see him last?"

"It was yesterday—around two, maybe? He left to meet with a client off-site."

"Who was the client?"

"That's the weird thing." Keith frowned. "He didn't tell me. I arrange most of his schedule, but he set this one up himself. When I asked who he was meeting, he just changed the subject." Keith got a stricken look on his face. "Oh, God. He never wrote me a letter of rec. Six months of my life as an evil minion and I don't even get a career bump."

He glanced around, more agitated about his lack of references than the news of his employer's untimely demise. "If you don't have any more questions, can I go? I have a lot of meetings to cancel if he's dead."

Jo exchanged a glance with Henry, but that was all the information she expected to get out of Keith for now.

"We'll let you know if we have further questions."

"Yeah, sure, of course." His parting assurances were mumbled into the air as he turned and walked with quick steps back towards the door.

"One more question," Henry called after him. Keith stopped and reluctantly turned.

"Yeah?"

"Was Mr. Lovitz a fan of Star Wars?"

Keith blinked. That was not the question he had expected. "Um, not that I know of? I mean, no more than anyone else. Isn't everyone a fan lately?"

The assistant took Henry and Jo's silent exchange as permission to leave, and he was soon through the door and out of sight.

* * *

"Keith the Lackey wasn't kidding about all the hate mail. I'm surprised this stuff didn't spontaneously combust in storage." Hanson tossed another printout on the growing "done" pile that rested between him and Jo on the conference room table.

The assistant had responded quickly to their request and sent a box to the precinct by messenger within an hour of Jo and Henry's visit. The box was filled with the more notable communications Lovitz had received from the public over the past year, both via email and US Mail. There was even one letter painstakingly constructed, ransom-note style, out of cut-out letters from magazines, but Jo and Hanson both agreed that its contents were no more threatening than the rest of the letters. The sender merely had a flair for the dramatic.

"There's certainly a lot of heat here, but nothing in the way of obvious intent." Jo threw her latest finished pile in the center and sighed. "We've been at this for two hours and nothing."

"I was kinda hoping someone would quote Yoda and make our jobs easier."

"The Star Wars angle might still be a coincidence," Jo pointed out. "A conveniently-timed coincidence with the new movie just out, but you never know."

Henry appeared in the doorway. He took in the mixture of boredom and frustration on their faces. "I take it Mr. Lovitz's mailbag is proving fruitless?"

"We've learned he was a 'racist asshole vampire feeding on African children,' " Jo read from the next letter in front of her, "but we already knew that. None of this righteous anger looks like death threats." She looked up at Henry. "Please tell me you're here because you have a lead."

"I have half of a lead," he offered. "Based on my analysis of the liver cells, as well as a second blood type I found on the sword, our unknown victim was a white male, approximately 45 to 55 years old, with a moderate drinking habit."

"So if we can find a matching missing person, we might be in luck." Hanson was already standing up, happy for a more promising lead to follow.

"Start with Lovitz's known associates," Jo said, "but something tells me this killer won't be as predictable as that."

"Got it." Hanson nodded on his way out the door.

* * *

Based on Henry's information, it didn't take long for Hanson to find a possible victim.

"Carl Snyder: corporate lawyer reported missing by his wife two days ago."

"Which means he's been missing at least three." Jo looked at the DMV photo Hanson had printed out. Snyder's careful haircut and expensive suit matched the self-assured smile on his face, even in his driver's license photo. "Any connection to our other vic?"

Hanson shook his head. "Not that I've found yet, but who knows. Even after I told his office he was probably dead, I got transferred three times and had to recite my badge number twice before anyone would talk to me. Damn lawyers."

"Did they give you anything useful?"

"One of his partners finally admitted that no one had seen him since Tuesday afternoon."

Jo's eyebrows arched up. "That was three days ago. That didn't concern anyone?"

"Apparently the guy took a lot of off-site meetings, made his own hours. Must be nice," Hanson deadpanned. "His current case is defending the Firebreaker Equipment Company against a class-action lawsuit. A dozen families of firefighters claim their loved ones died because of Firebreaker's faulty equipment. Sorry, "allegedly" faulty." Hanson's air quotes dripped with sarcasm. "According to Snyder's secretary, his last meeting on Tuesday was at the Firebreaker office, but I talked to the car service, and after that meeting the driver dropped him off at a completely different address across town."

"Okay, you take Firebreaker, and I'll try the mystery address."

"Swing by the morgue and grab Henry, would you? That's a sketchy block to visit alone." Hanson sighed at Jo's look of mock surprise. "Yes, I do think the Doc is _slightly_ better than no backup at all."

"Don't let Henry hear you gush like that." Jo stifled a grin. "Check in when you can."

* * *

Jo ended up taking both Henry and Lucas to visit the sketchy address, after much pleading on Lucas's part. She suspected the younger man was hoping for more chances to impress his boss, her, and anyone else within earshot with his suddenly valuable Star Wars superfan knowledge.

As it turned out, he got his wish.

The smell of stale smoke struck them the moment they got out of the car in front of the old warehouse. Its windows were mostly shattered, and wide blackened streaks ran up the walls from every door and window. Parts of the roof had collapsed, and twisted beams jutted out like broken ribs.

"I'm guessing our guy died in a fire?" Lucas mused.

"Not in this one," Jo answered. She pointed to the bright yellow sign tacked to the front door. "The site is under investigation by the fire marshall. This fire happened nearly six months ago."

"Long enough for a class-action lawsuit to be filed?" Henry offered. He followed the edge of the building to one corner and peered around. "Judging by the condition of the structure, this fire burned hotter than an average building fire. Equipment that wasn't up to snuff may well have failed here."

"That would explain Snyder's connection, but not why he dropped by personally. Seems way below his pay scale." Jo pulled out her phone. "I'll call the fire department and see if they can get us inside."

"Oh. Were we supposed to ask?" The unexpected echo surrounding Lucas's voice caused Jo and Henry to swivel their heads quickly in his direction. He poked his head back out of the now-gaping front door. At Jo's censuring glare, he shrugged defensively. "What? It was open."

She frowned at that. "It shouldn't have been."

"That's not the only thing that shouldn't be happening here." He looked to Henry. "You better look at this."

As expected, "Do Not Enter by Order of Fire Marshall" did not even slow Henry down; not when there was a hint of intrigue in the air. Jo sighed and followed her partner inside. She hoped Reece would be in the mood to cover for them with the FDNY later.

Once they were inside the walls, intrigue wasn't the only thing in the air. Jo sniffed once and wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Is that what I think it is?" She had only encountered this distinctive odor once or twice before, but it wasn't something she was likely to forget.

"If you think it's the scent of human flesh charred nearly to ash, then yes." Far from looking put off by the clinging, stomach-turning smell, Henry squatted close over what Jo only now recognized as blackened human remains on blackened ground: a burned skeleton arched back in what appeared to be a rictus of pain.

"Tell me what I'm looking at."

"All soft tissue has been thoroughly obliterated, most likely with the aid of an accelerant. The fire was hot and fast," Henry observed. "The lingering smell of the original fire could have masked the second, more targeted burn from casual notice, as long as no one saw the flames."

"Is this Snyder?"

"It's possible. The burn site would need at least two days to cool to its current ambient temperature, and Mr. Snyder disappeared three days ago." Henry looked thoughtful. "A positive ID will require dental records, but judging by height and build, this could well be—"

"Uncle Owen."

"I beg your pardon?" Henry blinked up at his assistant with a frown. Lucas had taken a step back to frame the crime scene between two angled thumbs and forefingers. "Who is 'Uncle Owen'?"

Jo sighed. She wished she could be irritated by Lucas's deeply geeky observation, but she couldn't. Not with this case.

"It's from Star Wars, Henry. The body is staged like Star Wars again."

"First victim, first movie." Lucas nodded sagely. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was shot first. Blasters are probably out of the question, so maybe just with a gun?"

"Lucas." Henry ground out the name between clenched teeth. "We will not make wild conjectures based on fanciful tales. Would you kindly retrieve my bag from the car? I intend to collect actual evidence."

"Sorry, Henry." Lucas tried his hardest to look contrite, but as he passed Jo he mumbled, "I'm totally right though."

Jo could see Henry pointedly ignoring the passing comment as he began examining the body more closely. She came to stand on one side of him, and she could see how stiffly he was holding his shoulders.

"You can't avoid it anymore, Henry."

"Avoid what, exactly?" He didn't look up. If she didn't know better, she'd say her partner was sulking. No, what was she saying? She did know better. He was definitely sulking.

"You can't avoid Star Wars. It will probably be around as long as you will, and like it or not, it's relevant to this case." She hesitated, but only for a moment. "You can watch it at my place if you like, after you finish the autopsy. I own the box set."

"Thank you, Detective, but that won't be necessary." At least her offer got him to look up, and he turned his searching gaze on her. "You never did explain how you came to be so knowledgeable on the subject."

"Like I said, it's a long story," Jo admitted. "But until you can pick Yoda out of a lineup, I won't tell it."

Henry allowed himself a slow grin. "Very well. After we solve this case—with scientific evidence and good detective work, mind you, not trivia—you can introduce me to this Yoda."

"It's a date." Jo tensed slightly at her own unconscious word choice, but she didn't take it back.

"So it is."

When he looked at her like that, Jo could almost forget they were standing over a charred murder victim—almost.

Lucas had reappeared with Henry's bag, and she was grateful for the distraction.

"I hate to delay your date with an observation…"

"No—it's, ah, it's not…" Jo started to explain, but Lucas pressed on.

"…but we only have two victims."

It only took Jo a moment to change gears and catch his meaning. Once she did, she sighed to herself at the logical—and very pressing—conclusion of what he was saying.

"I have yet to see the films," Henry said slowly, standing up beside the body, "but if memory serves, aren't they a trilogy?"

Jo nodded grimly. "The first two murder scenes reference the first two movies, in order. Unless we find the killer first, it's a good bet that someone else is going to die soon."

"Most unfortunate this is." Lucas shook his head slowly and spoke in a gravelly falsetto.

Henry didn't ask.


	4. Chapter 4

Jo stepped off the elevator into the morgue, her curiosity piqued by the cryptic summons that had brought her here.

" _Four years working with Henry, and I've never seen him do this."_

" _Do what, Lucas?"_

" _It's more fun to hear it from him."_

Henry and Lucas were positioned over the charred skeleton they had discovered several hours earlier, but neither man was touching it. Instead, they were standing half a step back, arms crossed, brows furrowed in thought, eyes staring intently at the victim's skull.

No, Jo amended, it was mainly Henry who was doing the furrowing and staring. Lucas's eyes kept bouncing between the remains and Henry as if he were watching a heated debate and wasn't sure who was winning. As soon as he spotted Jo, Lucas gave her a significant look that seemed to say, _See? I told you._

Jo frowned. Henry was constantly staring at bodies. What was the big deal?

"Hey, have you got something for me?"

"Dental records confirm that this is, indeed, Carl Snyder." Henry's voice was casual and even as he relayed the information, but he still didn't look up.

"Okay." Jo drew out the word, waiting for one of them to continue. When neither of them did, she prompted, "Was there something else?" So far, they could have told her this over the phone and saved her the trip.

"Lucas's theory was correct," Henry continued. "Two separate sets of striations on both anterior and posterior segments of the ribs indicate that not only was Mr. Snyder stabbed through the liver, he was also shot at close range with a 9mm handgun before his immolation."

"Talk about overkill," Lucas added. "But if you want that authentic stormtrooper look in your murder scene, you need to shoot people."

"So we're calling it a 'theory' now? Not wild speculation?" Jo knew she was needling Henry, but she couldn't help it. A little needling was good for him. Besides, if she was being honest, he was cute with his hackles up.

Sadly for her hackle fetish, Henry seemed unperturbed by the comment. "Given the volume of circumstantial evidence, I grant that our killer is likely drawing inspiration from the Star Wars films. After all, serial killers have been modeling their actions after literature and popular culture for hundreds of years."

 _And you would know._ Henry glanced at her. His expression gave nothing away, but she knew he had heard her retort in spirit. That made her grin a little before she swallowed it back.

She turned to Lucas. "Did you call me all the way down here to show off that Henry is finally on board with the Star Wars thing?"

"What, that's not big enough news?"

Jo called his bluff and started to turn back toward the elevator, and Lucas threw up a staying hand. "Okay, fine. There's more." He looked expectantly at his boss. Henry, in turn, continued to stare down at the bones.

"Don't let me rush you." Jo crossed her arms and gave Lucas an impatient look, but it was Henry who finally broke his stalemate with the skull.

"I've called in an expert to consult on this case." He looked up to meet Jo's surprised look with schooled ease. "Lucas seems to find this cause to stop the presses."

"Well, you have to admit, Henry: you don't ask for help very often." She gave him the friendly version of her interrogation room stare.

He shrugged. "I am glad to acknowledge the greater expertise of a colleague when it occurs."

Jo's eyebrows arched up and she looked at Lucas. His expression told her they had both heard what Henry didn't say: _It just doesn't occur very often._

"What brought this on?" She pressed. "Is Carl Snyder's skull refusing to blink in this staring contest you seem to be having?"

"Cause of death was simple enough to determine—severe blood loss after the initial stabbing—but we need more. We need something that will lead us to the killer. Finding trace evidence on remains with this degree of incineration is extremely difficult, and not a specialization I have mastered—yet." He couldn't resist adding the last word.

"So who is this magical creature who knows more than you about something?"

Henry ignored her bait. "Dr. Grace Borgen is one of the foremost forensic anthropologists in the world, and she happens to be in New York this week for a conference. She graciously agreed to consult on this case. I suggest you go home and rest, Jo. Dr. Borgen and I will call you when we have more information about our killer."

* * *

Barely more than an hour later, Henry stood on Jo's door step and pressed his forefinger into the buzzer with more force than was strictly necessary. He turned up his collar against a chill wind and waited. He suddenly wondered if she had made other plans for the evening. Grocery shopping, visiting a friend…even a date wasn't outside the realm of possibility. He hadn't thought to call ahead, he'd simply assumed she would be here. Maybe he should just—

The curtains shifted slightly, followed by the click of the deadbolt turning and the easy swing of the door on its hinges. He made a conscious effort to clear the dark clouds from his features and put on a pleasant smile.

"Henry." Jo had changed into a pair of leggings, a long sweater, and fuzzy socks slouching around her calves. Henry was suddenly conscious that he rarely saw her wearing such a soft style, and it made her look...different. Younger. She also looked surprised to see him, but not displeased. "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry to intrude, but I was wondering if your offer of a movie night still stands. We have a serial killer to catch, and I want to be as informed as possible."

She gave him a curious look. "What about your consultation with Dr. Borgen? Did you two find something already?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid. This sort of examination is more art than science. I didn't wish to interfere with my guest and her methods." He tried to hold his smile in place, but a spark of amusement flashed in his partner's eyes as she easily saw past it.

"She kicked you out of your own morgue, didn't she?"

"It's all ridiculous, really!" His mask slid right off at his outburst. "I merely made a suggestion or two regarding her methodology, and the next thing I knew I'd been dismissed. She is a very…idiosyncratic person."

The spark in Jo's eyes spread into a full-blown smirk. "Well, it takes one to know one." Henry hunched his shoulders against a gust of cold wind, and she stepped back to make room in the doorway. "Come on in. I can even offer you dinner with that movie, if you don't mind Thai takeout straight from the carton." Henry brushed past her into the entry hall, grateful to be out of the elements.

"This seems to be a night for firsts."

* * *

They started with _A New Hope_ over shared boxes of chicken pad thai and vegetable curry. Despite her earlier threat, Jo retrieved two bowls and two forks from the kitchen, but Henry gamely stuck with the disposable chopsticks he'd found in the delivery bag. He said something about it "taking him back" but didn't elaborate. Jo was about to ask how far back he meant exactly—Vietnam War? Boxer Rebellion?—but he seemed intent on "getting this over with," as he unflatteringly put it. She shrugged, pulled the DVD off a shelf in her living room, and loaded it into the player. After settling on the couch at a friendly distance from Henry, she pushed play.

They were barely ten minutes into the movie when he asked for the third time, "Are you sure your phone is charged?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure."

"And the ringer is properly turned on?"

"Henry, relax. Lucas promised he would call as soon as Dr. Borgen learns anything, right?" He nodded hesitantly. "So as long as he doesn't piss her off and get ejected like his boss did, he'll call."

"Yes, but—"

"Do you want to watch this or not?"

"Yes. Sorry."

Henry quieted after that, although she caught him glancing at her phone from time to time where it rested on the coffee table in front of them.

He remained distracted until the movie came to the stormtroopers' attack on Luke's family, the scene that the killer had used to stage his first crime scene. On seeing that, Henry leaned forward with sudden interest and pointed a finger at the screen.

"Ah—right there! Pause it, please." Jo hit the button, and the eerily familiar image of a charred skeleton froze before them. "I see now why Lucas made this connection so quickly. Note the curvature of the spine, the positioning of the limbs. Our killer's staging of Snyder's body was quite accurate, based on this image."

Henry had a familiar gleam in his eyes. Jo saw it every time he was on the trail of a new theory. In her experience, the gleam was followed by a manic burst of energy and focus, but it usually occurred within the confines of the morgue or his home laboratory. It had never happened in her living room before.

Fascinated by the process, she simply asked, "What are you thinking?"

"I had originally decided to view these films for the cultural insight they might provide into the mind of our killer. I hadn't considered the more concrete possibilities."

"I'm not following."

"If the killer is adhering this closely to what he sees on the screen, then the films may provide us with ersatz crime scene footage of sorts."

"And how does that help us?" She was skeptical but curious.

"Each on-screen death has the potential to help us interpret real evidence we've found, or have yet to find." He leaned back slightly, but his posture was alert. "Continue the film, if you please. I have visual autopsies to perform."

* * *

Henry's new perspective on the movie was making all the difference in his interest level, but it was now the oddest movie night Jo had ever been part of. Her partner was no longer restless and eyeing her phone, but he wasn't really watching the movie, either. Not the way normal people watch movies. And also not the way two eligible people usually have a "movie night" without watching the movie, she thought wryly.

Henry was paying rapt attention to the screen, but only to the deaths. Each time a character was killed, he rattled off possible causes of death, debating with himself over the real-life equivalents to the science fiction elements, and occasionally asking Jo to pause or replay a section. Occasionally she would volunteer a piece of information about what a death meant in the bigger picture, and Henry would nod with interest. He wasn't writing anything down, but she could see the way he was neatly filing away bits of information for later use.

At last, the end credits were rolling, and Henry allowed himself to lean back into the couch with a sigh.

"Fascinating."

"Which part?" Jo allowed the DVD to continue but turned down the volume, pushing John Williams's operatic soundtrack into the background.

"Of all the deaths depicted in the film, I would think Obi-Wan Kenobi's the most significant, yet our killer chose to recreate a different scene entirely." Jo had to suppress a giggle when Henry's careful British pronunciation of "Obi-Wan Kenobi" sounded like a baritone version of C-3PO's fussy tones.

"What?" Henry cocked his head at her sudden amusement.

"Nothing." Jo turned sideways on the couch to face him, one elbow draped comfortably over the back. "Maybe it has something to do with his relationship to the victim. In his mind, Snyder didn't deserve the honor of getting the same death as Obi-Wan."

Henry turned his head toward her and considered her for a moment before speaking. "There was no Yoda."

Jo's brow wrinkled at the non sequitur. "No, he shows up in the next movie. What about him?"

"I can't pick him out of a lineup yet, but I am still curious."

"About my Star Wars history?" she finished. He nodded, and she sighed in capitulation. He turned to face her fully then, mirroring her posture with one arm over the couch back, entirely focused on whatever she was about to tell him.

"It was my dad's fault. I was young when the movies first came out—probably too young for him to be taking me to see _Return of the Jedi_ in the theater—but he took me anyway."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"I don't remember much about the movie from that first time, besides a lot of Ewoks and a creepy old guy with lightning hands. But he took me, not my brother, and that felt special. It became our father/daughter bonding thing." She gestured to the screen, which was still rolling towards the end of the credits. "They used to play this movie on TV every year. He wasn't always around when he should have been, but we never missed watching it together. There was even a year when he was locked up, but he sweet-talked the guards into playing it in the common room. So at least we were watching at the same time."

Jo glanced over to see how Henry was reacting to her story. Sympathetic faces and empty platitudes were the big reasons she didn't talk much about her family; she didn't want sympathy.

Thankfully, Henry wasn't offering any. He merely nodded. The only sign that her story was more than just facts to him was the understanding she could see deep behind his eyes—not the tear-jerk reaction of someone looking forward to pitying her, but the kind of sympathy that comes from living through tough times, through them and out the other side, and knowing they are not what define you.

"Do you still watch it every year?"

"It's not an annual 'network television event' like it used to be, but yeah, I do," she admitted.

"Does he?"

"I don't know." She refused to look away. hiding behind a brave face out of habit. She didn't give an explanation out loud, but Henry seemed to hear it anyway: the natural barriers that formed between a criminal and his police officer daughter; the "don't ask, don't tell" that gradually gave them less and less to talk about; the stupid choices she couldn't ignore; the polite but necessary distance they maintained most of the time now.

Henry saw. In fact, the look on his face had slid to vague, and Jo suspected he was seeing more than just her story. The credits had finally given way to the endless looping menu screen, but for several minutes, neither of them noticed.

He was still looking far past her when he finally responded.

"The sins of the father never do fade quickly."

* * *

 _New York City, 1977_

Henry strode across the living room to answer the insistent knock on their apartment door.

"Abraham! This is a surprise. Come in."

"Hey, Pops. Thanks, but I can't stay. I've been trying to call, but you never seem to be home this week. You're harder to track down than Son of Sam."

"I'm sorry, your mother and I have been spending some time away."

"Let me guess: someplace no one knows you, and you're painting a lot of white into your hair?"

"Something like that. Are you sure you won't join us for dinner? Let me get your mother." Abigail was currently in the bedroom unpacking and sorting clothes, where Henry had also been before Abe's arrival.

Abe quickly reached out a hand to stop his father. "No, don't bother her. A home-cooked meal sounds great, but I can't. I'm supposed to pick up Maureen in a few minutes. We're seeing Star Wars again."

"Again?" Henry frowned in vague disapproval. "How many times have you seen that film?"

"Oh, a few. But that's not why I stopped by." His son looked a little unsettled, and worry lines creased his forehead.

"Is something wrong?"

"No no, everything's fine," Abe answered quickly, then revised, "Well, probably fine. It's just, I met a guy through work yesterday, and he recognized my name. Said he knew you in the War, that you patched him up in a field hospital in Germany once—saved his life. He remembered because you mentioned me, and he had a boy named Abe at home too. Fellow by the name of Stan Weiss."

Henry nodded slowly. "Yes, I remember Stan. Well, there's nothing too alarming in that—"

"There's more. I told him I'd give you his best."

"That was kind of you."

Abe shifted restlessly and sighed. He glanced up and down the empty hallway before stepping past Henry into the apartment and closing the door.

"Pops, he saw you die. Remember the unexploded ordinance behind the hospital?" Henry was silent for a moment, but it was a confirmation, not a denial.

"I didn't think anyone saw that."

"He described it just the way you tell it in your story, right down to the time of night and the garden hoe you were using to search."

"My patients were in danger!" Henry said a little defensively, then he forced his voice into calmer tones. "I transferred field units the next day just to be safe, but I never knew of any witnesses."

"Henry, I'm sorry. I messed up." Abe looked at his father but looked down immediately, and his face was lined with guilt. Henry grasped him by the shoulder.

"Don't be ridiculous. Abraham, none of this is your fault. Besides, you already have a full-time job. You don't need another one as my caretaker." The grasp turned into a pat. "Now go on. You mustn't keep Maureen waiting any longer. I doubt she appreciates that."

"No, she doesn't." Abe smiled at Henry's knowing comment and turned to open the door. Before he left, he turned back to his father. "Just keep an eye out, will you? Stan was giving me a very suspicious look when I left. I don't think that's the last we'll hear from him."

* * *

 _New York City, present day_

Jo woke up to the sound of a DVD menu looping in the background, and the awareness that Henry was asleep next to her. His head was resting back against the overstuffed couch cushions, tilted slightly toward her. She tilted her own head to face him. They weren't touching, but their heads were closer than usual. She didn't know what time it was, but she'd been fast asleep. Henry still was, although she didn't know when that had happened.

After the first movie, a quick call to Lucas had revealed only that Dr. Borgen was still "communing with the bones," as he'd put it, so she and Henry had continued on to _The Empire Strikes Back._ Henry had approached the second movie with the same investigative fervor as he had with the first. He did look over at Jo with a triumphant grin when Yoda first made an appearance, though, even though no one died.

By the time _Empire_ had finished, Henry was comfortable enough with the DVD remote to "do his own damn pausing," as Jo had mumbled from her half-conscious state, and he'd pressed on into disc three. She was pretty sure she had fallen asleep within the first thirty minutes of _Return of the Jedi_.

The remote was now resting loosely in Henry's slackened hand, threatening to tip onto the floor with the slightest movement, though at the moment he was still. Over the course of the evening, he had shed his suit coat and loosened his tie, and that's how he appeared now: in his vest and shirtsleeves, and unconscious. She realized with surprise that this was the first time she had ever seen her partner sleep. She knew in theory that he slept, that he was still human, but seeing it for herself caught her unawares.

He looked younger when he was asleep. She knew this was true for a lot of people, but it was different with Henry. Physically, he never looked a day over 35, and possibly he never would. He was incapable of wearing out or looking older. At least, it was never anything a good night's sleep or a quick death and rebirth couldn't fix. Still, there were long-gone decades folded into his manners, and centuries lurking behind his eyes. She had thought of him as an old soul long before she'd learned how true that was.

When he slept, all of that fell away. Or maybe it was just hidden behind closed eyelids and relaxed muscles. She suddenly wondered if he was dreaming of his life two hundred years ago, and that's why he looked younger. She shook that off as fanciful—but she still let herself enjoy the view. He was just so damn handsome.

Her phone rang, and she jerked forward to pick it up off the coffee table. She heard Henry break the regular rhythm of his breathing and knew he was awake—and since it was Henry, he was probably wide awake and alert already. She answered the call as quickly as she could and hoped he hadn't noticed her open staring.

"Martinez."

"Hey, Detective." Lucas's voice sounded a little bleary.

"Lucas? What time is it?"

"Three sixteen a.m.," he answered, and a wide yawn followed.

"You're still at the morgue?" Jo look over at Henry. As expected, he was alert and listening closely.

"Yeah, I'm still here. This is personal, you know? The killer is using the power of Star Wars for evil. Not okay."

"What do you have?"

"Not to diminish Henry, but Dr. Borgen is a certified genius. She's got a location."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** : Hello, gentle, patient and forbearing readers! As it turns out, I have not been kidnapped by aliens with no wifi, just supremely distracted by Real Life. (In good ways! Still—distracted and not writing.) My sincerest apologies for the massive lag since my last update—it's not how I usually roll. I offer you this super-sized chapter as a peace offering/bribe.

A big, Death Star-sized thank you to **idelthoughts** (truthisademurelady on Tumblr) for her incredible beta and cheerleading skills. She practically deserves a co-author credit for all she's done to knock the rust off and get this story moving forward and making actual sense.

Now back to our story that started long ago in an update far, far away...

* * *

Jo and Henry stood in the elevator facing the doors, watching the floor numbers tick by as they approached the OCME's floor. Henry was fidgeting.

"Did Lucas say what evidence Dr. Borgen found, exactly?"

Jo didn't turn her head. "No, but maybe she'll let you back in the morgue now and you can find out."

"Hmpf." He began unbuttoning his coat and adjusting his scarf with clipped movements. A less loyal partner might say he sounded petulant. A less indifferent partner might secretly find it adorable.

They stepped off the elevator into a morgue that was more active than usual for nearly four in the morning. In addition to the usual skeleton crew, Jo saw Lucas standing next to a woman in a lab coat who could only be Dr. Borgen. Two lab techs also hovered nearby, apparently just to bask in the presence of a forensic celebrity. They were all gathered around Carl Snyder's blackened skeleton, but unlike the motionless stare-off Jo had witnessed earlier that day (or was it the day before?), Dr. Borgen was picking up various bones in turn and pointing out things to the techs, who nodded enthusiastically, and to Lucas, who was trying to hide his enthusiasm.

Without looking up, she called to Jo. "You must be Detective Martinez. Come on over—and bring Henry with you."

Jo could tell by the flexing muscles in his jaw that her partner was clenching his teeth, and out of loyalty to him she managed to stifle her grin at the woman's casually dominant manner.

As they crossed the room, Jo looked with curiosity at the only person, to her knowledge anyway, who had ever ejected Henry from his own domain. Dr. Borgen was shorter than either Henry or herself, but the confident alignment of her posture gave her the illusion of greater height. She was probably in her mid-fifties, with shoulder-length white hair drawn back into a practical ponytail, and her skin was aging very well, probably from all the time she spent out of the sun in labs and morgues. She glanced up as they joined the circle around the bones. Jo saw that she had piercing blue eyes and a no-nonsense expression underpinned with what she suspected was very dry wit.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice, Dr. Borgen. Henry tells me you're the best in your field."

"Please, call me Grace. And I'm happy to help."

Jo could sense Henry bristling slightly at the friendly exchange, but he sucked it up and smiled politely. Henry was good at polite—when he chose to be.

"I hope this late night won't affect your participation in the conference tomorrow, Doctor," he said.

"Nah, my keynote and the really interesting sessions were today anyway." She paused her examination to give him a frank look. "Come now, Henry, no hard feelings. You know I have nothing but respect for you. Some people just weren't made to work with partners, and I'm one of them. I always thought you were too, actually." She turned to Jo with probing curiosity.

Jo suddenly thought she knew how these bones felt, if they could feel anything. Another minute and every secret she had would be pulled out by this woman's powers of perception. It reminded her of Henry's uncanny abilities, except that Grace had enough distance to cast an impartial eye on Jo and Henry's partnership. Jo didn't think she was ready to know what the woman saw.

She cleared her throat. "Lucas said you found a lead?"

"Yeah, and we never would have guessed," Lucas added enthusiastically, but then caught the look on Henry's face. "I mean, _I_ would never have guessed. Maybe other, smarter people would have deduced based on..."

"Oh, for God's sake, Lucas," Henry said in irritation, "what did you find?"

Grace suppressed a grin and redirected her attention to the victim before them. "What your very loyal assistant is trying to say is that we discovered a small rotator cuff impingement here," she pointed to a spot on the bone under the magnifier, "and here." Henry leaned in to look, his earlier pique gone. Grace continued. "This particular type of bone spur injury is often known as—"

"Polo shoulder," Henry finished, and she nodded.

"Snyder played polo? We hadn't come across that yet." Jo started to move. "I'll go upstairs and start digging, but I doubt we'll be able to get polo club membership rosters at this time of the night. Morning. Whatever."

"I can't give you a roster," Henry offered, "but I do have one name for you."

Everyone turned to him in surprise. "What? Who?"

"Based on the half-healed blisters on his right hand and the way his stride indicated he was nursing a groin pull, I'd say the young assistant at Empire Pharmaceuticals has recently taken up polo. It's a rather rare pastime in the city, and the connection hadn't occurred to me until now." He nodded to Grace in acknowledgement, and she graciously nodded back.

"Keith the lackey?" Jo said incredulously. "Huh. Maybe he took the fast track from minion to villain after all."

* * *

Jo had mercy and waited until five a.m. to call in Hanson to help with the background check. He arrived with a large cup of coffee in each hand, and she accepted one with a grateful nod. She hadn't told him how little sleep she'd actually gotten, or that those few hours had come in the form of a nap on her couch next to Henry, but they'd been partners long enough for him to catch the signs of a sleepless night.

"Do we really like Keith for this?" Hanson logged on to his computer and waited for it to wake up, just like the rest of them. "He doesn't strike me as having the stomach for chopping up his boss."

"We'll see," Jo said with a shrug. "There are two polo clubs in the area, but neither of their offices open until ten. I've been running his employment and legal history but nothing's popped yet."

"I'll take family background." He took a bracing swallow of coffee and turned to get started. "So how did Henry do with sharing his toys?"

"They worked it out eventually. Let's just say the morgue isn't big enough for two geniuses."

Jo had left Henry squinting with interest at a clavicle that Grace Borgen was holding as she pointed out some minute detail, his ruffled feathers forgotten in his enthusiasm to learn how she had made her discovery. No doubt he was filing the technique away for future use.

"Okay, here we go. Keith Prentice…" Hanson read off his computer screen, squinting slightly as he scanned the information in front of him. "Parents John and Olivia are retired and living upstate…one older sister living in Queens by the name of Sally Ferguson, a younger brother who moved to—"

"Hold on," Jo interrupted. "Why is that name familiar?"

"Who, Sally?"

"Well, Ferguson anyway. I could swear I've come across that name lately." Jo opened a file in front of her and shuffled through it, then closed it and opened another.

On her third try, she gave a triumphant "ha!" and turned the file to show Hanson. "Here, on the list of firemen who died in the line of duty while using Firebreaker products. One of the class action plaintiffs was the family of Christopher Ferguson, formerly of Queens."

Hanson was already searching records online as she spoke, and he nodded when the result appeared. "Good catch—it's the same Ferguson. Looks like Keith's widowed sister got screwed out of a settlement by our first victim and his team of legal bloodsuckers."

"And as victim number two's personal lackey, Keith certainly had opportunity there." Jo picked up the phone and punched a button. "I'll have uniforms pick him up."

* * *

"This is crazy! Why would I kill some random guy from the polo club?" Keith ran a hand through his hair, dislodging the last of the carefully gelled style it had once held.

"But it wasn't just some random guy, was it, Keith?" Jo slid a photo across the table of the interrogation room to rest squarely in front of her suspect. "Can you tell me who that is?"

Keith only had to glance at the photo and he blanched. "That's Chris. My brother-in-law."

"You're telling me it's a coincidence that a kid from Queens not only takes up a hobby as _chi-chi_ as polo, but joins the same club as the guy who screwed his family over? Even though it's twice as far away as the other two clubs in the area?" She didn't elaborate, just waited for his response.

It didn't take long. "Yes, alright." Keith looked away, not from the detective, but from the convicting stare of his sister's late husband. "Chris was a good guy, and a good firefighter. Sally and the kids got cheated. I met Snyder at a polo match that Mike dragged me along to."

"Mike Lovitz, your former employer?"

He nodded distractedly. "I'd been to court with Sally. I knew who that asshole Snyder was. I thought that if I joined the team…I don't know what I thought. I could get inside information, maybe. The Good Ol' Boy network is alive and well, you know."

"Polo is not a cheap hobby," Jo offered.

"Tell me about it!" Keith burst out. "Two hundred bucks for an overgrown croquet mallet? I think rich people get off on spending money just for the hell of it."

"You must have been furious when Sally lost her suit. All that time and money for nothing."

"No." Keith shook his head emphatically. "That's not what happened. I already told you, I was grocery shopping when you say that schmuck was killed."

"Yeah, you did say that." Her tone was mildly skeptical. "We're still looking into it."

As if on cue, there was a sharp rap on the door.

"Excuse me." Jo stood up and walked to the door, leaving Keith to sweat privately.

Hanson was waiting outside. "The minion's alibi checks out. He paid with credit at Whole Foods right around the time Carl Snyder was getting barbecued."

Jo let out a sigh, but she wasn't surprised. "Any corroborating witnesses?"

"A cashier remembers him. He signed up for the newsletter, which nobody does voluntarily. Trying too hard to be the Whole Foods type, if you ask me."

"But not a murderer," Jo added. "Thanks, Mike." She returned to the interrogation room. Even if Keith wasn't a serial killer, she had the feeling she could get a little more from him. She walked back to the table but didn't sit down. She gave him only a cursory glance as she gathered up the papers and photos she had used in the course of her interrogation.

Layered on top of his spooked, nervous look was now confusion. "So…are we done? Can I go?"

"Sure, you can go." Jo straightened the papers inside a file folder and shut it, still not looking at him. "But don't go far. We know you didn't kill Snyder or Lovitz yourself, but you were certainly in the right place at the right time a lot. We'll probably have to pull you in for questioning at least two or three more times before this is all done, looking for other suspects. I wonder how you'll spin that on your resumé?"

"What?! What do you want to know?"

At this hasty concession, Jo schooled her features to remain stern. Apparently, six months as a soulless corporate lackey had left Keith with a pathological fear for the safety of his resume—that and about twenty minutes' worth of backbone. She casually stopped what she was doing, looked up, and after a beat pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Did you see any familiar faces besides Snyder at the polo club? Anyone who was connected to your boss, besides you?"

"No, nothing like that. I didn't know anyone in that crowd."

When he didn't go on, Jo sighed. "This is not my idea of helpful, Keith."

"I'm trying!" He was actually sweating now, and Jo almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Try a little harder."

"Yeah, okay. Um, you probably know about the parking ticket in Chinatown already, but I swear I was only there for dim sum. Whatever happens in that back room is none of my business."

Jo stared him down. "Do I look like a meter maid to you?"

"No." Keith shook his head gravely. "No, you do not."

"One more chance, Keith, and then I need to go find some actual leads."

His face brightened. "Oh, hey, I got a really weird email yesterday!"

Jo waited for him to elaborate. He didn't at first. "Sounds fascinating. I got weird email yesterday too—some Nigerian prince who needs money." She stood up. "So, would you rather go home or hang out in holding overnight? Rough company, but it might be less awkward than all the visits from cops to your workplace, your apartment, your friends..."

"Wait." He held up one hand. "I'm just...I'm not sure how to describe it."

"Who sent it?"

"At first it looked like spam from some ambulance-chasing online law firm. 'Have you been unjustly targeted by the police?' Stuff like that. I don't get a lot of spam through the filters, so the timing was pretty spooky, now that I think about it. The word choices were what really struck me as weird." Keith frowned, trying to remember details. 'Don't delay! The police are in the Dark, but we will Force them to see the Light.' Stuff like that."

Jo frowned. "You received this yesterday? Do you still have it?"

"I deleted it, but it should still be in my Trash folder."

"Show me."

* * *

Henry was waiting at her desk when Jo returned.

"I came to check on your progress with Keith. Hanson says you've found something?"

"I think our killer emailed him yesterday." Jo leaned over her computer and logged in. "Tech is seeing what they can pull from the metadata, but here's the text."

Henry leaned over next to her and quickly read the message.

Have you been unjustly targeted by the police? Don't delay! They are in the Dark, but we will Force them to see the Light. We've brought justice and balance before, and we'll do it again very soon. Bea certain that putting your Life in our hands will win the Day.

"You say Keith received this yesterday?"

Jo nodded. "Our killer is familiar enough with the players in this case to know we would suspect him. Maybe he even set him up. Or maybe he's watching."

"But why send this message and risk being tracked through it?"

"To taunt us? Prove he's smarter?" Jo speculated. "But that's not all. Here." She pointed to a sentence in the middle. Henry nodded, already on the same page.

"'We've brought justice and balance before, and we'll do it again very soon.' How soon, I wonder?"

"I don't know, but this was sent over 24 hours ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that the clock is ticking for our third victim."

Henry frowned as he read the next sentence. "I can see why Keith assumed it was one of those internet swindlers: 'Bea certain?' Atrocious grasp of modern English."

Jo gave her partner a dry look. "Yeah, atrocious."

"One thing is certain." Henry straightened and gave Jo's computer screen an adversarial look. "The killer is confident we won't find him in time." With that, he turned and began striding away.

"Where are you going?" Jo called after him.

He barely slowed as he half-turned to face her. "To prove him wrong."

* * *

Several hours later, Henry and Lucas were still encountering nothing but dead ends in the morgue. They had reexamined every butchered piece of Mike Lovitz, every charred bone of Carl Snyder. Henry had even insisted they take a closer look at Al the alpaca, but nothing. No new details presented themselves—nothing that gave them somewhere to look next. No way to catch the killer, or prevent a third murder.

Instead of staring thoughtfully like the night before, Henry was restlessly examining piece after piece of the bodies in increasing frustration. After he dismissed Lucas's third suggestion in a row with a quelling look, the younger man sighed.

"Okay, so maybe asking the closest astrophysics lab about cloaked spacecraft isn't the way to go. Maybe this guy really didn't leave any trail for us to follow."

"I refuse to believe that." Henry's mouth was set in a grim line as he reached for a blackened rib bone.

"How are Jo and Hanson coming on the email?" Lucas ventured.

"Nothing yet. Apparently the killer masked his email's origins quite effectively."

"What did it say again?"

"Some nonsense about Dark and Light and Force, obvious references to the mythology of the films." Henry finally looked up and pointed at his assistant with the rib he was holding. "For all we've credited this killer with intelligence, he didn't even spell 'be' correctly."

"'Bee' as in 'buzz buzz'?" Lucas asked with a frown, confused as to how this related to Star Wars.

"'Be' as in 'To be or not to be,'" Henry clarified, "only with an extraneous 'a' at the end." He returned his attention to the remains before him, but Lucas did not. He stared, unfocused, mouth half open, until his thoughts coalesced into a sentence.

"No. Not 'be' as in Shakespeare. 'Bea' as in Arthur."

"I beg your pardon?" Henry looked up again. He was accustomed to Lucas's perplexing references and usually ignored them, but this seemed somehow related to the case.

"Bea Arthur. The actress? _Golden Girls_?" He shook his head at Henry's blank stare. "Never mind. Show me the exact text of the email. Um, please?" He tacked on the last word in response to the very boss-esque look he was getting. So much for online assertiveness training.

Henry removed his exam gloves and logged into the nearest workstation. Jo had forwarded the text to his email. Lucas read it through once, then read it again.

"Huh."

"What is it?"

Lucas straightened his lanky frame and looked from the screen to Henry. "You should probably get Jo down here. I think I found something."

He managed to maintain the gravitas of the moment for about three seconds before an elated near-giggle escaped him. "I've been waiting three years for the chance to pull off a line like that."

Henry didn't think he had pulled it off, really, but he graciously kept that to himself.

* * *

Five minutes later, Jo and Hanson had joined Henry and Lucas gathered around the computer screen.

"Right here, see?" Lucas pointed an excited finger at one section of the email. "'Bea certain that putting your Life in our hands will win the Day.' Life and Day are capitalized. Get it? Life Day?" His big reveal was met with three sets of blank stares. "No? Hey, that's okay. I knew that one day my wasted youth would pay off. It's another Star Wars reference."

Henry frowned. "I'm sure there was no mention of a 'Life Day' anywhere in those films."

"It wasn't from the trilogy," Lucas qualified.

"All of you insisted that the killer would give no credence to the more recent prequels," Henry said a bit defensively, "and that I shouldn't waste my time studying them."

"That's true," Lucas said, "but this is from the Holiday Special."

There was a moment of silence following his pronouncement.

"Wait, you mean that gawd-awful made-for-TV disaster?" Hanson asked, his lip curling in distaste.

Lucas nodded. "Guest starring Bea—that's B-E-A—Arthur, after _Maude_ and before _The Golden Girls_."

"I've seen parts of that," Jo said, frowning as she recalled a few faint impressions. "Luke is wearing more makeup than Leia, and Leia looks as high as a kite. Didn't George Lucas practically disown it?"

Lucas held up his hands. "Hey, it might be a train wreck, but it's canon, baby."

"Canon?" Henry huffed. "I was unaware that Star Wars had become a religion."

His statement did not have the expected impact. Lucas, Jo and Hanson all shrugged their shoulders slightly.

"Yeah, it kind of is," Hanson said. "For the hard-core fans, anyway."

"Which this guy obviously is," Lucas said, turning back to the screen, "and that's why I'm sure he knows that Life Day is generally accepted by fans to be November 17, the day the Special first aired. The number 1117 sparked a memory from one of the case files I looked over while Henry was staring at—that is, examining the remains," he quickly corrected. "Except, I can't remember which one."

Jo perked up, happy to finally catch sight of the point. "Eleven-seventeen...yeah, I saw it too. It was an address…"

Hanson snapped his fingers. "Keith the lackey! That's his street number."

"Is he involved after all?" asked Henry.

Jo shook her head. "I don't think so. Not directly. But that address is an apartment building. And one that our killer might be drawn to." She looked at Hanson and Henry, then cocked her head toward the elevator. "Shall we?"

* * *

Henry turned slowly to scan the apartment walls, taking in one Star Wars movie poster, signed photograph, and authentic prop reproduction after another.

"This looks promising."

"Ya think?" Jo said with distracted sarcasm.

"Oh, wow." Lucas approached a glass-fronted shadow box displayed on the wall and spoke with a tone that bordered on reverence. "The original 1978 Obi-Wan Kenobi action figure with double-telescoping lightsaber. One of the rarest Star Wars collectibles in the world."

"Get a room, you two." Hanson quipped dryly. "Some of us are trying to work." He passed Lucas and headed into the next room, but not before sneaking a peek at the figurine in question to make sure he didn't have a gold mine sitting in his parents' attic. Alas, wrong lightsaber.

The NYPD/OCME foursome had started with the apartments on Keith's floor, systematically working their way down the hall and asking the residents if they knew of any neighbors who were major Star Wars fans. They had gotten some odd looks from most, but the fifth person they had talked to nodded emphatically. He was the kind of retired busybody who noticed everything, and he had complained that he heard the music from "those damn movies" coming out of a unit two doors down "every damn night." When there was no answer at the door he indicated, they had appealed to the super to get in.

"Hey, get in here, you guys." Hanson's voice called to them from the next room.

Jo, Henry, and Lucas followed the sound to where Hanson stood bent over a small desk in the bedroom.

"Check this out." He nodded to the array of newspaper articles and online printouts he had fanned out from their neat piles with one gloved hand. The headlines announced breaking developments in the Firebreaker class action suit, as well as exposés of Empire Pharmaceuticals featuring photos of Mike Lovitz looking either villainous or rich and pretentious.

"He did his homework," Jo commented. "Hold on. What's that?" She walked past the desk, bent down, and picked up a long, slightly curved black object that had been hidden under a dresser. It would normally have been out of sight, but it was visible thanks to the low angle afforded by leaning over the desk, its lacquered wood finish shining in the bright light of the reading lamp.

She stood up, holding the object flat with both hands. "Is this what I think it is?"

"If you think it's the empty saya, or scabbard, for a katana, then yes," Henry confirmed.

"Uh huh." Her tone said it all: they'd found their killer.

"The name on the lease is Blake Walker," Hanson filled in, checking the tenant list they'd gotten from the super. "I'll see if our buddy Keith is home, and how neighborly he is with this guy." He headed for the hallway.

"What's this?" Henry asked. Jo returned to the desk and followed his gaze as he slid the articles aside to reveal a recent issue of _Forbes_ on the bottom of the pile. It featured a handsome man with subtle but distinguished grey streaks in his dark hair. He was smiling with self-assured welcome and standing in the doorway of a TrusMart Superstore.

"Oh yeah, I read that article," Lucas commented. "Pretty interesting guy."

"All Hail the Discount King: Ron Trussell and the Rise of an Empire," Jo read aloud from the cover.

"Under the circumstances, that is a very unfortunate choice of phrasing," Henry commented.

"Trussell's stores are notorious for running local businesses into the ground," Jo commented. "If this guy Walker thinks he's fighting the Dark Side by taking out powerful men who pick on the little guy, he couldn't find a better target."

"Sure, it's a soulless corporate chain," Lucas argued, "but they have some good stuff cheap. My kitchen floor hasn't been the same since they pulled Glo-Wax off the shelves."

"What was the story with that stuff again?" Jo asked.

"It was a TrusMart exclusive, and there were some, shall we say, questionable results in lab rats a few years back. But hey, sometimes you take a risk," he added with a shrug. "Low-rent linoleum needs all the help it can get."

"That's not the only thing that needs help right now," Jo added. "Trussell lives right here in Manhattan. Very convenient target." She pulled out her phone and immediately called dispatch to send officers to the CEO's home and office.

Henry glanced out the window at the darkening sky. "The killer's email suggested that his next attempt at 'justice' would happen today. Let's hope that 'lives' is still the correct description for Mr. Trussell."

* * *

 _The next (and final) three chapters are 90% written and edited, so rest assured that I won't leave you hanging again! Thanks again for coming back. :)_


	6. Chapter 6

"Mr. Trussell appreciates your concern, but he really cannot be disturbed right now." Ron Trussell's personal secretary was the type Jo would describe as somewhere between stern grandmother and linebacker, and the woman was currently throwing her weight into blocking Jo and Henry's access to the executive office door behind her.

They had come to TrusMart corporate headquarters after officers reported that Mr. Trussell was present but refusing to enter protective custody. Jo had bullied her way through a few more layers than they had, but Mrs. Kennedy clearly saw "last line of defense" as part of her secretarial duties.

"Can't be disturbed?" Jo's eyebrows spiked. "There is a mentally unbalanced killer out there who thinks your boss is literally an evil villain. Trust me, we are the least disturbing option he's got right now."

The secretary didn't even blink. "Mr. Trussell has excellent security and a very important event to attend tonight. He is not available. I'm sorry for your trouble." She didn't sound sorry.

"Yes, his last two victims had excellent security as well," Henry said, and turned to address the large man with an earpiece and barely-concealed sidearm standing not-so-subtly along one wall. "I suggest you get a letter of reference as soon as possible, before it becomes indelicate." The man was too well-trained to respond, but Henry detected a slight tightening in his jaw muscles. He wanted to know more about the security threat, but it wasn't his job to contradict Mrs. Kennedy.

Jo saw the opening as well. She pitched her voice a level higher and toward the double doors behind Madam Secretary. "I appreciate that Mr. Trussell is a busy man. We wouldn't be here if this weren't a serious and immediate threat to his life. I'm not leaving until we've spoken to him."

The secretary was drawing a breath to respond when the door clicked and swung inward, and Ron Trussell appeared in the doorway. Jo recognized him from the cover of _Forbes_ , but even without that clue she would easily have pegged him as a Fortune 500 CEO. He had that "Master of All I Survey" look about him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy." Trussell spoke to his secretary, but he was looking at Jo with polite unconcern. "I can speak with them. As long as they don't mind watching a grown man fumble around dressing himself." He dipped his chin to indicate the formal black tie half-tied around his neck. "I never got the hang of these things."

"With a butterfly knot, the key is not too much tension. May I?" Henry's even tone and civil choice of topic caught everyone off-guard—everyone but Jo, that is. Even the security men were slow to react when Henry stepped forward and reached for the billionaire's throat.

Trussell recovered first and smiled in a "stand down" gesture to his men. For Henry and the rest of his current audience, he gave a good-natured shrug. "Please do."

Henry loosened the current mess of a bow and started over, going through the motions with practiced ease, until the CEO was sporting a perfectly executed bow tie. He stepped back with a nod of approval, and Trussell turned to a mirror on the wall. He examined Henry's handiwork, looking impressed.

"Thanks. This must be my lucky day, having such an expert stop by at just the right time."

Jo stepped forward at this opening. "Henry is certainly an expert in formal neckwear, but your luck is still up for debate. Mr. Trussell, are you aware that—"

"I know, I know." He waved a hand dismissively. "There's a murderous psychopath after me. And something about Star Wars?"

"Sir, I know it sounds…odd…but the threat is very real."

"Don't get me wrong, Detective," Trussell answered, "I believe you. But I haven't gotten all dressed up just to go to the prom." As he spoke, he peeled a tux jacket off a hanger and slid his arms in. "I am the keynote speaker at a Wells of Hope benefit tonight that my company is funding. A thousand bucks a plate going straight toward clean water in Africa. I'm not canceling because some weirdo thinks I'm Darth Vader. This is why I have the best security available. I'll be fine."

"The Emperor."

Trussell frowned in confusion, and Henry clarified his statement. "Blake Walker has most likely cast you in the role of Emperor Palpatine, not his masked protegé. Your death represents the final step in restoring order to the universe. He will be very persistent in this goal."

"No offense to your men, I'm sure they're excellent," Jo assured, "but the NYPD has more resources. We need you to come with us."

"I truly do appreciate your concern, Detective, Doctor." He nodded to Jo and Henry in turn. "But that is simply out of the question." He buttoned his jacket into place, shrugged into an overcoat, and nodded for his security detail to join him as he walked out of his office and through the reception area. Once he stepped into the elevator, he gave Jo a semi-apologetic smile. "I promise I'll be careful. Good night."

Jo's jaw tightened as she watched the elevator doors close on the three men. Henry stepped over to her side.

"He has the legal right to refuse our help."

Jo nodded grimly. "Sure. But he just made our jobs a lot harder, and the killer's a lot easier."

* * *

 _New York, 1977_

"What do you mean, you were fired?" Henry repeated with shocked incredulity. "You are one of their best salesmen." He and his son were sitting together at a favorite corner bar near Abe's apartment. Henry had insisted on the meeting when his son had seemed very distracted and preoccupied over the phone. Now Henry knew why.

Abe ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know that, Pops. It wasn't about my performance. Hey, never mind why." He dismissed the question with a shake of his head and raised his glass. "Here's to fresh starts. There are plenty of places hiring right now. With my qualifications, I'll find something better by next Tuesday."

"Abraham." Henry tilted his head toward his son and gave him a look that said he wouldn't be derailed. "What happened?"

Abe lowered his glass to the bar. "It's stupid. It's nothing." Henry didn't blink, and Abe relented with a sigh. "Remember that guy Stan I met last week?"

"The man I treated during the War? The one who saw me…" Henry trailed off as Abe nodded.

"That's the one. My slip about you still being alive made him pretty suspicious. He started asking a lot of questions. Apparently, there have been a lot of con men lately who cash in on War vets by pretending to be their next of kin."

"That's despicable. You would never do that," Henry stated.

"Yeah, I know that, Dad," Abe said with exaggerated patience, "but our family paperwork doesn't exactly stand up to close scrutiny, ya know? I had to fudge a little. Vets are big customers for us, and the company can't afford to have a story like this getting around. Don't worry, they couldn't prove anything about you," he reassured.

"This isn't about me," Henry protested, "this is about you, and losing your job thanks to me and my condition."

"I thought this wasn't about you," Abe answered with a quirk of his lips.

"Abraham, this is serious."

"Yeah, Pops, it is." Abe looked him in the eyes. "Maybe I want to keep you in town a little longer. I can always get another job. Like you said, I'm a helluva salesman." He grinned and lifted his drink in salute before taking a healthy swallow.

Henry could only smile and shake his head. How any child of his had developed such blithe self-confidence was a mystery to him. It was so...American. Nevertheless, Henry was not willing to let this incident lie. There had to be something he could do.

* * *

 _New York, present day_

It didn't take long.

As soon as Henry and Jo returned to the precinct, she arranged for passive surveillance on Ron Trussell and his more-important-than-life fundraiser. Less than ten minutes later, Dispatch showed up on her caller ID.

"That was quick. What happened?"

"Detective, I have a Lou Stone on the line for you." the professional voice of the dispatcher relayed.

Jo frowned. "Who?"

"He says he's Mr. Trussell's head of security."

"Put him through," Jo said, and a moment later, "Mr. Stone? How can I help you?"

"You were right, Detective." The voice on the phone was that of confident man who had been shaken. "I don't know how the little bastard did it, but you were right."

"How he did what?"

"Got past us. Mr. Trussell is gone."

While Jo was asking a few further questions and scribbling down the man's answers, Hanson returned. He waited for Jo to finish her call before sharing what he had learned.

"Keith the lackey did recognize Walker from his building, although he claims he didn't know him well. Just knew him as Blake. Nice enough guy; said they would chat once in awhile—laundry room, elevator, places like that."

"Let me guess: they didn't just talk spoilers from the new movie."

"No Star Wars at all, if you can believe it," Hanson answered. "Keith says they usually talked about current events, including the Firestarter lawsuit against Snyder. Sometimes they talked about their crappy bosses. Blake work at the TrusMart distribution warehouse until a few weeks ago, when he got downsized by automation."

"There's the connection to all three," Jo said. "Snyder, Lovitz, and Trussel. How did Keith react when he found out he unknowingly sent a serial killer after both the lawyer he hated and his scumbag boss?"

"Got a little green around the gills," Hanson said. "Partly because it makes him a suspect for accessory. Again."

"Do you think that's likely?" Henry asked.

"No," Hanson admitted. "But I didn't tell Keith that," he added with a little shrug. "Keeps him cooperative."

Jo grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair. "I'm going to meet Stone at the last place he saw Trussell before he lost him. You two coming?" Hanson nodded, but Henry shook his head.

"You go ahead," he told her. "I need to get some advice from Lucas."

Jo gave him a bemused smile but only nodded. "I'll let you know what we find."

Henry hurried downstairs to the morgue and as expected, Lucas was poring over scans and test results, hoping to find some connection or lead they had missed. Henry smiled to himself in approval. His young assistant was a very hard worker, and his skill at putting together disparate pieces of information really was coming along. In this case, however, Henry needed him to embrace his non-professional, fanatical side.

"Lucas, I need some advice."

Lucas started and nearly bobbled his stack of files onto the floor in surprise. "What? Really? From me?"

"Are there any other Lucases present?"

"No. That is, I see no other Lucases, not 'No, I won't help.' Of course I'll help. I've dreamed of this moment, I just never imagined it would come so soon."

Henry waved his hand in dismissal. "Never mind. Tell me: if you were a homicidally obsessed fan of Star Wars, what would you consider fit justice for the leader of the Dark Forces?"

"That is an excellent question," Lucas began, "and let me start by thanking you for saying 'if'. I may be a fan, but I'm not homicidal. Now." He began to pace slowly, hands clasped behind his back. "The first question is, how has he cast himself in this world? Only then can we determine how he will respond to the Dark Side."

Henry didn't comment on the way his assistant was subtly taking on his own mannerisms while lecturing. He nodded slightly and looked attentive, which was all Lucas needed to continue full-steam ahead.

"With a name like Blake Walker, it's a good bet that he considers himself Luke Skywalker, bringer of balance to the Force. If he thinks Trussell is the Emperor incarnate, he definitely thinks the guy needs to die for the sake of the universe. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the TrusMart business model and staffing practices, but evil incarnate is a little extreme."

"Yes, we all agree that Trussell is his target—especially given the fact that he's just kidnapped him—but _how_ will he do it? Our hard evidence alone will not narrow the field fast enough to save our victim."

"Mm-hm, mm-hm," Lucas nodded thoughtfully and stroked his chin. "I see what you're saying. Combine a fandom-informed profiling model with forensic evidence. I like it."

Henry attempted to steer the conversation back on course. "In the end of the trilogy, the Emperor is cast into a pit. Is the depth important, or is it the fall itself? Are we looking for a tall building near the kidnapping site?"

"No. It's neither." Lucas snapped out of his detached professor spiel as actual inspiration hit. "It's not about the fall from power, it's the literal power."

"The dark energy," Henry said, and Lucas nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

"Exactly! The Emperor was killed by his own dark use of the Force turned against him. All that blue lightning—so cool, right? Especially for 1983. Ground-breaking special effects."

"Let's stay in the symbolic world a moment longer, shall we?" Henry said. "According to his file and our examination of his previous victims, how might Blake Walker recreate this feedback of dark energy to kill his ultimate enemy?"

"It's easy enough to electrocute someone," Lucas mused. "Any old car battery will do it. TrusMart even has their own automotive service chain. But the back room of some TrusMartAuto outlet doesn't seem quite...Death Starry enough."

"The location should represent the core of Trussell's power," Henry agreed.

"What about headquarters?" Lucas asked. "You and Jo visited earlier, right? Is it possible Walker took him back there?"

"It's possible," Henry conceded, "although security was extensive. He would have had a difficult time getting past the front doors, much less connecting the CEO to any sort of power source. No," he said, starting to pace, "what we need is a location with both meaning and opportunity, preferably with a forensic connection."

They both thought silently for a moment until Lucas gasped. "Oh!" He darted to the desk and shuffled through the papers he'd almost dropped when Henry arrived until he found what he was looking for. "Polymers!"

"Polymers...the ones CSU found on the cave floor?" Henry asked.

"Yes!" Lucas held up the chem report excitedly for Henry to see. "These two are used in nearly all floor waxes. CSU thinks they were probably tracked in by our killer, but they're too common to be useful. But this third substance is artificial coloring. They thought it was residuals from the empty cans of Mega-Caf found in the cave—you know the stuff," he added.

"That alarmingly green energy drink. Yes, I am familiar," Henry said with a slight wince.

"it wasn't a residual," Lucas said confidently. "It was Glo-Wax. Same green, different liquid."

It was Henry's turn to light up with inspiration. "Excellent, Lucas!"

"Thanks, except how does this help us? Glo-Wax got pulled two years ago, and there's no way to track who owns it now."

"Exactly!" Henry explained, "Given the public recall, where is the only place likely to still be using it in large quantities?"

Now Lucas was tracking. "TrusMart! Probably transferred to generic bottles, but they took a huge production hit on that recall. At least they could save a little housekeeping money until supplies ran out."

Henry nodded. "Walker worked in the distribution warehouse for three years. He knew it well. And what better location to serve as the "heart of the empire" than the hub of all products moving in and out?" He picked up the nearest phone. "I'll call Jo."

After he dialed, he turned once more to his assistant. "Thank you, Lucas. "

Lucas shrugged, obviously pleased. "Yeah, well. Happy to do what I can to balance the Fandom Force for good." Henry didn't respond, and Lucas shook his head. "Never mind. You're welcome. So," he continued, "is this how it started with you and Dr. Borgen?"

Henry glanced up from the ringing phone, distracted. "How what started?"

"Oh, you know. Two colleagues, consulting each other on tough cases, sometimes continuing on to fame and international renown…"

"I met Grace at a conference four years ago, just before I took the position here." Henry appeared to be half remembering, half listening through the phone. "We connected after asking similar questions at a Q&A session on the dating of Viking remains from the Isle of Man." He shook his head. "Deplorable methods. She wrote a much more accurate paper the following year. I consulted." He glanced at his assistant. "So no, she and I have never worked together catching a murderer obsessed with popular culture. Try to embrace your own strengths, Lucas."

"Right."

Henry frowned toward the phone. "Jo's not picking up. I hope everything is alright." He hung up and dialed again, this time trying Hanson's number.

"—an—"

"Hanson? Are you there?"

"—end—recep—park— you back." Only clipped fragments survived the bad connection before the call ended.

Henry looked from the phone to Lucas. "Hardly better."

"What about dispatch?" Lucas suggested. "There must be an officer with a radio somewhere nearby."

"Good idea." Henry handed the phone to him and headed purposefully for the elevators. "Tell them I'll be at the TrusMart warehouse."

"Wait, what?" Lucas called after his boss. "You're going by yourself? Jo's not going to like that." But Henry was already disappearing behind the elevator doors. "She will definitely yell at you." Lucas mumbled, to himself now, as he dialed dispatch and lifted the receiver to his ear. "But first she's going to yell at me. So, thanks for that."

* * *

It took Henry three tries to find the right door, a little-used service entrance with a picked lock on the side of the building. The facility had no third shift, and with the time approaching ten o'clock, the parking lot was all but abandoned. Even at this time of night, keeping a hostage in an active workplace where Trussell might be recognized seemed extremely risky. Such a high level of recklessness could indicate that Walker was nearing the end of his self-appointed mission to save the galaxy, or however he framed his delusion. He was taking chances, which would make him easier to catch. It also made him more dangerous. With that thought, Henry swung the door slowly open.

The corridor within was empty of both light and sound. Henry stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him. He stood very still, allowing his senses to adjust to the new environment. Gradually he perceived light glowing faintly from around a corner at the end of the hallway, and he quietly followed it.

Two corners later, he froze at the muffled sound of voices. A few more paces brought him to a heavy metallic door latched firmly shut. The room was labeled only with a number, but judging by the weight of the door and the large number of pipes, ducts, and electrical bundles leading in and out along the ceiling, Henry suspected this room housed the boiler as well as the electrical panels. He pressed one ear to the metal and strained to hear the voices within.

"…pointless. You have no power over me. In fact, your power will be the death of you soon enough."

"Listen, I don't know who you are, or why you want to kill me. Will you at least tell me that?" Henry recognized Trussell's voice. He sounded shaken, but not terrified. Henry supposed it took a certain amount of steel under pressure to get to where the business magnate was in life.

"Of course you don't know me. Why would you care who keeps places like this running?" The voice Henry could only assume belonged to Blake Walker was taut with stress and sarcasm. "Why would you care who built your Empire, or whether we can afford health care? Things must look pretty rosy from way up on that throne of yours. So how do you like the view from this new seat?" Walker sounded pleased by what he thought was a clever joke, and Henry suspected he knew why.

Russell didn't sound amused either. "Okay, I can see you're upset—"

Walker cut him off with a bark of laughter. "Nice try, Big Guy, but you're not negotiating your way out of this one."

"Then why are we talking? Why not just kill me already?" Henry had to give Trussell credit for guts.

"Because," Walker said calmly, "at the right moment, your own power will destroy you. All I have to do is wait and watch."

"So when is this right moment? The stroke of midnight, like some fairy tale? I think I have the right to know when I'm going to die, don't you?" Trussell was making a valiant effort to sound calm, but Henry could hear the tremor of fear under his bravado.

"If you ever came down off your throne, you would know the answer to that question. And don't talk to me about rights."

Walker was calm again, in control. What did he mean? Henry frowned in thought and glanced around the stark hallway at the ducts and panels lining the ceiling and walls. Many of the sorting and picking functions in this warehouse were now automated. Trussell had been both praised for adopting innovative technologies and villainized for eliminating blue collar jobs. The amount of power required for such automation must be considerable, he thought, and most likely centrally programmed to activate at a certain time.

It was time to leave. He needed to find Jo as quickly as possible.

"What's this? I sense a disturbance." Walker's voice broke into Henry's realization. "Looks like we're not alone, Big Guy."

Before Henry could follow through on his plan to retreat, the heavy metal door before him swung open, and he was face-to-face with Blake Walker. The man was medium height and build, not at all imposing to look at, with shaggy hair that Henry suspected was dyed to that familiar shade of blonde. The one thing that _was_ imposing was the pistol he was pointing at Henry.

"I know you. You're with the police." Walker's eyes darted up and down the dark corridor, looking for the other cops that must certainly be there. The man didn't know him so well after all, Henry thought with grim humor, but he had to give Walker credit for doing his homework. He must have been monitoring one or more of the crime scenes in order to recognize Henry.

"I'm here alone," Henry said, hands raised. "Surely if you sensed my presence, you know that."

Walker gave him a long look, like he was waiting for him to continue and make the mocking joke more obvious, but Henry said nothing else. After all, the man _had_ sensed him. Most likely by way of surveillance equipment, but sensed nonetheless.

"You came here alone? What kind of stupid cop are you? Turn out your pockets. All of them." Henry did as ordered, and despite holding the gun steadily on his interloper, Walker relaxed slightly at the sight of no weapon, no radio, not even a cell phone.

"I'm not a cop; I'm a doctor. I'm with the medical examiner's office." His eyes darted past Walker's shoulder to take in Ron Trussell's situation. Halfway across the room, the man was bound by the wrists and ankles to a metal chair. His jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up, and the front of his tux shirt pulled open, Henry's carefully tied butterfly knot in ruins. Leading from a nearby electrical panel to the man's wrists, ankles and chest were thick cables.

Henry took all this in at a glance, but it was long enough for Walker to notice. He advanced on Henry enough to force him a few steps further back into the passage and out of sight of his captive.

"I'm impressed that you found me. Sorry, but impressed. You don't seem all that Dark, just caught up in the struggle. Unfortunately, Stormtroopers usually go down with the ship."

"Blake, you don't need to do this."

He gave a humorless bark of laughter. "Yes, I do! I'm the only one who can. And I can't let you stop me. I really am sorry, but you should know that your sacrifice will help to bring balance."

Before Henry could say another word, a shot echoed loudly through the stark space. He looked down, the not-quite-painful sensation all too familiar to him. Sure enough, a deep red stain was spreading quickly across his shirt and waistcoat. Blake Walker had shot him point blank through the heart.

He sank to his knees and looked up to find the man still watching him. Soon, he would see too much. Henry searched desperately through his mind for some way to make the man turn away, but thought and sensation were both slipping away too quickly. His last thought as he slumped over onto the concrete floor, his killer watching with curiosity and mild regret, was that Lucas had been right: Jo would be very angry.


	7. Chapter 7

When Abe and a slightly soggy Henry got home an hour later, Jo was waiting for them, thanks to a call from Abe _en route_ to the river. As predicted, she was not happy.

Henry appeared at the top of the stairs, and his son came up behind him, looking much more like the disapproving parent between the two of them. "Well? Do you have something to say to Jo?"

"Abraham, now is not the time. We have a murder to stop."

Abe answered sternly, "Henry, we talked about this in the car. 'Jo, I'm sorry I ran off like a blundering moron and got myself killed again.' " He recited the apology by way of a sing-song prompt.

"I never agreed to say _moron_." Despite his protests, Henry looked cold, waterlogged and a bit sheepish, and Jo could only sigh.

"Never mind, Abe. Thanks for picking him up."

The man shrugged. "It's what I do. You two talk, I'll make coffee."

While the apartment filled with the smells of coffee and toast ("You both look hungry"), Henry filled his partner in on what he had seen in the warehouse: the CEO of TrusMart strapped to a chair, a series of improvised electrical contacts running from his bare chest to some very large trunks of wires.

"Right now the factory's automated equipment is dormant, but I believe that when it activates for the day—"

"Walker rigged it to electrocute Trussell," Jo finished.

"From comments Walker made, I believe the system is set to automatically power up very early in the morning. It could be any moment."

Jo was already pulling out her phone to call Hanson. With a few quick words she gave him the instructions he needed to find out about stopping the automation, while skillfully avoiding mention of where she got this lead. Henry watched and waited for her to finish the call with a fretful look on his face. She suspected she knew why.

"How did it happen?"

"Gun shot to the heart at close range. It happened quickly." His statement was scientific, as matter-of-fact as any autopsy he'd summarized for her, but Jo couldn't prevent the answering clench in her gut. This was Henry's cause of death; Henry's heart at close range. But one more swim in the river wasn't why Henry looked so unsettled. She put the pieces together with a frown.

"Close range? Does that mean…"

He nodded once. "He saw me vanish. I'm sure he did."

Jo shook her head. "Henry, this guy thinks he's saving the world from the Dark Side of the Force by killing rich guys. No one is going to believe a word he says about vanishing bodies."

Henry wasn't comforted. "You'd be surprised what people will believe. And what if there were security cameras? He knew I was there somehow." He took the cup Abe offered and clutched it tight. "I'm sorry, Jo, but I can't be part of this case any longer. I can't risk him seeing me again."

Jo was half-inclined to agree with him, if only to keep him out of the line of fire for once, but it was Abe who spoke first.

"On the contrary, Pops, you're the one person he definitely _should_ see again."

Jo and Henry both turned to him with bemused frowns. "Hear me out," he said, and sat at the table with them, leaning forward with excitement. "This nutjob is obsessed with Star Wars, right? Thinks he's the latest Luke Skywalker or some such nonsense?"

"Yes," Henry drew out.

"Well, you just died and disappeared without a trace right in front of him. According to his twisted movie logic, that makes you the person he trusts most in the world. Maybe the only one he'll let in without killing Trussell." Jo caught on and exchanged a skeptical look with Abe, who only shrugged. "Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

After a moment Jo shrugged as well; he had a point. She turned back to her partner. "Here's hoping your movie night research stuck. You just cast yourself as Obi-Wan Kenobi."

* * *

Henry had moved to the wingback chair near the fireplace. Jo suspected he was craving something solid and reliable, and predating the invention of motion pictures. She and Abe had each pulled up a chair to face him and close ranks. Jo had already called in an expert who was on his way, but in the meantime, they were taking turns explaining what exactly they were asking him to do.

"Trust me, Henry—this is a golden opportunity." Abe was really getting into the plan now. "Dying and disappearing in front of a delusional Star Wars fan? You couldn't have planned this any better if you tried!"

"I'm glad to hear my latest untimely demise was conveniently located," Henry answered dryly.

"But he's right." Jo leaned in. "To Blake Walker, you just became Obi-Wan Kenobi. His trusted mentor. I don't think he counted on you showing up, but now he can't ignore you. We've got to press this advantage."

Henry looked from his partner to his son and back. "And you both think that because this man saw—because of what this man saw, he will let me in without protest? That I'll simply _tell_ him not to kill Ron Trussell and he'll agree?"

"Well, he'll at least listen," Abe qualified.

"It's a lot more than we have otherwise," Jo admitted. "I heard back from Hanson. The automation is scheduled to power on and run a self-diagnostic every Saturday night at 1:15 a.m. Normally the foreman can override remotely, but there's a backup power system. We have to assume that Walker knows about it, and that he's using it to cut off outside control."

"And considering his reaction to finding me," Henry added, "we know he's willing to use a gun if his more dramatic methods don't suffice."

"Blaster." All three of the room's occupants turned to face the new voice. Lucas was standing at the top of the stairs, cardboard box in hand.

"He probably calls it a blaster," Lucas continued. "More in line with canon for Luke Skywalker." His gaze roamed around the apartment for a moment before he shook himself stepped forward, setting aside the novelty of a rare invitation into Henry's inner sanctum for the sake of the urgency of the case.

He dropped the box with dramatic flair on a side table, muttering an apology when the action dislodged the book resting there.

"Are you sure you're okay, boss?" He looked at Henry with genuine concern. "Jo said you had to play dead after he missed, then sneak out. That sounds pretty much…terrifying."

"I was lucky," Henry assured him, silently thanking Jo for her explanation. "As it turns out, you were right, Lucas. I should have waited for backup."

"Well, no harm, no foul, right? Nobody died," Lucas said briskly, trying to lighten the mood. The other three occupants of the room traded glances.

"Did you bring everything?" Jo asked, changing the subject.

"And more! Here, take a look." Lucas reached in and drew out a long hooded robe. "Visually accurate to the one Alec Guinness wore in _New Hope."_

Henry stood up to better eye the coarse brown fabric. "You think this will convince a delusional killer to stop killing?"

Lucas looked at the robe, then back at his boss with a dismissive snort. "No, of course not. Not without the rest of it!" He thrust the robe at Henry, who was forced to drape it over one arm while his assistant dove into the box again. He pulled out an off-white robe, brown mock turtleneck, and brown leather belt, handing each piece to Henry in turn. "Our shoe sizes aren't exactly similar, so I'm hoping you have brown riding boots?"

"Well, yes, but—"

Lucas nodded. "They'll do in a pinch."

"I'll grab them," Abe offered, and disappeared down the hall.

"Lucas, this is perfect," Jo commented as she held up one corner of the robe in Henry's hands, and Lucas beamed. She looked up to give her partner a challenging look. "What do they say, Henry? 'The clothes make the man'? Think you can pull off Sir Alec Guinness?"

"You know, I saw him in _Twelfth Night_ opposite Laurence Olivier once. The performance was quite remarkable." Henry got a fond, distant look on his face as he remembered a stage somewhere in London, somewhere in the improbable past.

"I didn't know he was in a movie with Olivier." Lucas perked up at the idea of an obscure—though as it happened, nonexistent—film he hadn't seen yet, but Henry was spared the trouble of a cover story when Abe returned. His search had been successful, and he added the knee-high brown leather riding boots to the pile.

"I couldn't dream of matching Sir Alec's nuanced interpretation of Shakespeare," Henry deferred, but then added, "However, given the situation, I believe I can manage a basic Wise Magician archetype."

"Good enough." Jo gave him a guiding push between the shoulder blades in the direction of his bedroom. "Suit up, Obi-Wan. It's nearly midnight already."

Once he had reluctantly disappeared down the hall, she turned back to Lucas. "Did you bring the other one too? And the gear from Tech?" He nodded and started rummaging again until Jo froze him with a warning finger. "So help me, Lucas, if you pull a metal bikini out of that box I'm going to—"

"I wouldn't do that," Lucas assured quickly, but ruined the effect by continuing. "I mean, not that you couldn't pull it off if you wanted to. Which you wouldn't, obviously. I mean, the chafing alone—"

"Yep! Okay, thanks," Jo interrupted. "This will work." She grabbed the costume he held out and headed for the bathroom, calling over her shoulder, "Get those comms ready, would you? His idea of 'Basic Wise Mage' may not cut it without some prompting."

* * *

Henry stood once more in the darkened corridor of the TrusMart Distribution Center, listening outside the heavy metal door that concealed a killer and his next victim. This time, he hoped the encounter would be different. For one thing, the Tech team had detected and disabled the signal from an infrared motion sensor rigged up in the corridor, so he at least had a better chance at using the element of surprise.

Also, he was dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had barely known the character even existed until a few days before, but using the persona was a factor that his partner, assistant, and son unanimously insisted would make all the difference.

To top off his new "advantages" this time around, he wasn't alone. To Henry's growing chagrin, Lucas had constant access to his ear via hidden comm, and he was making full use of it.

" _Okay, Henry, remember: Obi-Wan is a character with complex motivations and a burden of guilt he never fully lets go until his death. But Walker thinks you just died! Cool! So act complex, but also kind of resolved? And a little ghosty?"_ All was silent for a moment, but Henry only managed to get through half a sigh before Lucas began again. " _Also, he might not be fully crazy enough to think you're the 'real' Ben Kenobi, so let's aim more for Obi-Wan-esque. His own personal Jedi mentor, if you wi—."_

" _Are you still talking?"_ Hanson's irritated voice cut in across Lucas's coaching. " _Stop tying up the frequency. Okay, Henry-Wan,"_ he continued with a smirk Henry could hear, " _you're good to go. Team is standing by in case your Jedi mind tricks don't work."_

Henry suppressed a heavy sigh. He didn't break character—not when he was about to go on stage, so to speak—but he was sorely tempted. Jo thought that having Lucas on comms would be necessary to feed him character-appropriate lines, and Hanson was necessary to coordinate the backup team, but at the moment the one-way connection was merely annoying.

Henry returned his attention to the closed door before him. He could hear a muffled voice from inside the room, but only one. Hopefully that just meant that Walker was doing all the talking, but the time when the building was scheduled to power up and electrocute the CEO of TrusMart was no more than fifteen minutes away. Plant engineers had just confirmed that Walker had cut off their ability to cancel the process from the outside. It was time to find out if this plan was brilliant or insane.

"Blake." Henry pitched his voice to sound slightly distant and hopefully mysterious. The murmurs within stopped abruptly, and he took that as his cue. "Blake!" His voice rose.

" _Okay, good. Now just wait. Don't open the door! Remember, you're a ghost. Wait for him to come to you."_

"Yes, thank you. I remember," Henry muttered under his breath. He was tempted to mutter more when there was a heavy clank and groan as the bolt slid out and the door swung slowly a few inches open.

"Who's there?" Walker's voice came through the opening, sounding strained. His face appeared, and right below that the gun Henry had recently become familiar with. He took one look at Henry and blanched. "You. I saw you die. Who are you?"

" _Okay, here we go. Say this: 'Stretch out your feelings. You know who I am.' "_

"Stretch out your feelings, Blake. You know who I am." As instructed, Henry kept his stance relaxed, hands folded serenely within in the folds of the robe, which despite looking remarkably similar to the costume he'd seen in the film, smelled slightly of sweat and those horrid cheese curls Lucas seemed to prefer.

Much to his surprise, Blake Walker didn't shoot him on sight. Instead, he lowered his gun, though he didn't put it away. "I thought I was the only one. The only one left."

" _Oh! Try this: 'No, Blake, there is another.' "_

Henry dutifully repeated the line. He also pressed his advantage and took two deliberate steps forward into the man's personal space. Walker barely seemed to notice. He stepped back and paced into the room, running his free hand through his shaggy hair distractedly. Henry followed him in, noting that Trussell was now gagged, though he appeared unharmed.

"I can't believe it," Walker said mostly to himself. "But it also makes sense, you know? I've always wondered if there was someone else out there. But no! It must be a trick!" Walker turned on him and lifted the gun again with an unsteady hand.

Rather than waiting for Lucas's prompt, Henry said the first thing that came to mind. "What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?"

Walker frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Why do you doubt your senses? Do you think me an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a—"

" _Wrong ghost, Henry_." Jo's voice broke in on the comms for the first time. " _Get on with it. Try to draw his attention away from the door."_

Henry covered the interruption with a throat clearing and paced across the room, hoping to put some of the nearby machinery between Walker and a clear view of the room. He also got back on-book, repeating the line Lucas had suggested earlier. "Do not be seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, Blake. I see that you are angry, and you have every reason to be. But anger leads to hatred. And hatred leads to…" How did this tripe go again? The line wasn't even in the movies he'd seen.

" _Suffering."_

"—suffering." He finished with what he hoped sounded like merely a dramatic pause.

"Suffering? What about _my_ suffering?" Blake strode forward to follow Henry, and the next moment they were out of sight of both the door and the intended victim. "What about the suffering of all the other people they've hurt in pursuit of their own power?" Walker was arguing with him, but Henry realized with fascination that it had taken on the tone of an argument between equals, perhaps even of a student with his master. He followed that thread.

"Indeed, young Walker, you have suffered greatly. But continue down this path and you will only become a master of evil. For this," he gestured dramatically toward the unseen Trussell and the tangle of wires that would very soon kill him, "this is but murder most foul, strange, and unnatural."

" _Wrong ghost again."_ Jo's hoarse whisper sounded in his ear. " _Keep him talking for a few more minutes. Almost done."_

"What am I supposed to do? Just let it all happen? Let everything slide into darkness?" Walker yelled in agitation. The gun swung widely as part of his gestures, and though he wasn't intentionally aiming at anyone, Henry feared he was nearly as dangerous.

"The world is dark, Blake. There's no doubt. But you can't fight darkness with darkness. If you've learned nothing else, surely you've learned that from all those movi—" Henry caught himself and corrected, "—ving lessons from Jedi Masters."

Walker's gun had sunk to his side. He stood silently, obviously in the midst of a serious internal struggle, when the sound of metal dropping on concrete thudded from the unseen other side of the room.

In a blink, the moment was gone. "You betrayed me!" Walker yelled. The gun snapped up to Henry as Walker walked sideways, trying to both keep an eye on him and hurry past the machinery to discover the source of the noise.

Henry broke character and put his hands up defensively. At least it was only Walker in view. The man had already seen all there was to see of his secret, no more damage to be done.

But the shot never came. Henry chanced to step forward enough to see Walker clearly. The man was frozen, wide-eyed.

"There really _is_ another!"

* * *

Jo would have made it out free and clear if it weren't for the damn costume.

She was wearing Leia's "Battle of Endor" costume of dark blue military trousers, high boots, and a wide-necked camouflage poncho belted down with a holster. She had tried to turn down the matching helmet, but Lucas had refused to let her leave without it. The things she endured in the line of duty.

She was here because sending Henry in was bad enough; sending Henry in with no backup was almost guaranteeing another trip to the river for Abe, not to mention requiring a lame excuse from her for his sudden absence. Instead, she'd borrowed a Star Wars costume from Lucas; she chose not to ask why he had it. If she needed to go in to bail Henry out (and she assumed she would) and Walker spotted her, appearing as part of his delusional fantasy would buy her a little time and goodwill. Or so she hoped.

Much to her surprise, Henry had been doing well. Once he had drawn Walker out of the line of sight, she had gone in. Thankfully Trussell was smart, and he hadn't made a sound. She had detached the electrical leads on his chest and shins. She was now working on cutting the zip ties binding him to the chair.

That's when the wardrobe malfunction struck.

The holster on her belt was accurate to the movie and the perfect size for carrying prop blasters, but it was a little too loose for an actual service revolver. She was leaning across Trussell to reach the restraint around his opposite wrist when her gun slipped loose and clattered to the floor. She heard Walker call out.

 _Shit_. She dove for her fallen sidearm and stayed low, training the weapon on the place where she thought he would appear. He did appear, but he promptly froze, mouth open and gun still aimed distractedly behind him toward Henry.

It took a moment of tense silence for Jo to realize what he was seeing: Princess Leia, backed up against a big metal wall defending herself, just like in _Return of the Jedi_. Thank God Lucas had insisted on the helmet.

"Put the gun down, Blake." When he didn't move, she stood up slowly, made a show of setting down her own gun, and took one cautious step toward him, then another. "It's over. We won. Let's go home…brother."

Jo was afraid for a moment that she had taken the charade a step too far. He tensed, looking from her to Trussell, then to Henry/Obi-Wan. He looked back at Jo.

"How do you know?" His expression was no longer tense or threatening. Instead, he bore the pleading look of someone truly seeking an answer. "How do you know they won't come back?"

"We don't, Blake. We can't know anything for sure." Jo didn't believe in lying to suspects, or anyone else. In Blake Walker's case, she sensed that it wouldn't be the right move anyway. "I do know this: if the Dark Side comes back, the good guys will be there to stop it. We always are." She didn't move any closer or try to signal Henry or the waiting team outside; she simply held his gaze and didn't flinch.

Walker seemed to hold his breath for a moment, then with an exhale, he lowered his arm. "I did what I could. I tried." Jo stepped forward at last, and when he didn't protest she gently but firmly took hold of the gun, threw it aside, and cuffed him in a swift, smooth move.

"It's my turn now," she answered, her voice also gentle but firm. "It's time for the rest of the, uh, Alliance, to continue the fight."

" _I'll take that as my cue to send in the uniforms."_ Hanson's voice broke the radio silence. " _See you in a minute, Princess."_

She repressed an eye roll. He couldn't see her anyway. She nodded to Henry where he had been quietly watching the confrontation unfold, and he moved quickly to Trussell's side to finish the job of freeing him from his restraints.

" _The Force is strong with that one,"_ a slightly awed voice stated over the comms. Henry smiled and looked at Jo.

"Lucas, I entirely agree."

* * *

 _A/N: Just one chapter left to wrap it all up. Thanks for your patience, everyone, with my much slower-than-normal pace on this story. Almost there..._


End file.
